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PLAIN 

TALES 


ERO/n THE 


HILLS 


Rl'dyard Kipling 


CHICAGO 

W. B. CONKEY COMPANY f 

A 

PUBLISHERS 



42897 


A 


Libnetry of Con<7r«ttB 

■•wo Captts KciXivEO 

SEP 4 1900 


Opynglit «ilry 

StCONO COPY. 

Odiverorf to 


ORDER DIVISION, 

SEP 8 1900 


COPVRir.HT, 1900, BV w. B. CONKEY COMPANY. 


7437-4 


. ' -r ■ ■ '■ ■ ■ 


-t. ' /. 

^ r 

CONTENTS. ' 


PAGE. 

Lispeth.;. 5 

■Three andean Extra.; 13 

Thrown- Away . . ; 19 

iMiss Youghal’s Sais ; 32 

; Yoked with an Unbeliever.' : 41 

Palse Dawn 48 

The Rescue of Pluffles 60 

Cupid’s Arrows. . . . i 68 

The Three Musketeers 75 

His Chance in Life 83 

I Watches of the Night 91 

The Other Man 99 

Consequences 105 

The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin 113 

The Taking of Lungtungpen 121 

A Germ Destroyer 129 

Kidnapped 136 

The Arrest of Lieutenant Golightly 143 

In the House of Suddhoo 151 

His Wedded Wife 163 

The Broken- Link Handicap 171 

Beyond the Pale i 79 

In Error 188 

A Bank Fraud '. I 94 

Tods’ Amendment 204 

The Daughter of the Regiment 213 

3 





4 CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

In the Pride of His Youth 221 

Pig 230 

The Rout of the White Hussars 240 

The Bronckhorst Divorce Case 255 

Venus Annodomini 263 

The Bisara of Pooree 270 

The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows. 278 

The Madness of Private Ortheris 288 

The Story of Muhammad Din 299 

On the Strength of a Likeness 304 

Wressley on the Foreign Ofi&ce 312 

By Word of Mouth 320 

To be Filed for Reference 327 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


LISPETH. 

Look, you have cast out Love ! What Gods are these 
You bid me please? 

The Three in One, the One in Three? Not so! 

To my own Gods I go. 

It may be they shall give me greater ease 
Than your cold Christ and tangled Trinities. 

— The Convert. 

She was the daughter of Sonoo, a Hill man, 
and Jadeh his wife. One year their maize 
failed, and two bears spent the night in their 
only poppy-field just above the Sutlej Valley 
on the Kotgarh side; so, next season, they 
turned Christian, and brought their baby to 
the Mission to be baptized. The Kotgarh 
chaplain christened her Elizabeth, and “Lis- 
peth” is the Hill or pahari pronunciation. 

Later, cholera came into the Kotgarh Valley 
and carried off Sonoo and Jadeh, and Lispeth 
became half-servant, half-companion, to the 
wife of the then chaplain of Kotgarh. This 
was after the reign of the Moravian mission- 
aries, but before Kotgarh had quite forgotten 
her title of “Mistress of the Northern Hills. “ 

Whether Christianity improved Lispeth, or 
whether the gods of her own people would 
5 


6 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


have done as much for her under any circum- 
stances, I do not know; but she grew very 
lovely. When a Hill girl grows lovely, she is 
worth, traveling fifty miles over bad ground to 
look upon. Lispeth had a Greek face — one of 
those faces people paint so often, and see so 
seldom. She was of a pale, ivory color, and, 
for her race, extremely tall. Also, she pos- 
sessed eyes that were wonderful ; and, had she 
not been dressed in the abominable print- 
cloths affected by Missions, you would, meet- 
ing her on the hillside unexpectedly, have 
thought her the original Diana of the Romans 
going out to slay. 

Lispeth took to Christianity readily, and did 
not abandon it when she reached womanhood, 
as do some Hill girls. Her own people hated 
her because she had, they said, became a 
memsahib and washed herself daily; and the 
chaplain’s wife did not know what to do with 
her. Somehow, one cannot ask a stately god- 
dess, five foot ten in her shoes, to clean plates 
and dishes. So she played with the chaplain’s 
children and took classes in the Sunday school, 
and read all the books in the house, and grew 
more and more beautiful, like the princesses 
in fairy tales. The chaplain’s wife said that 
the girl ought to take service in Simla as a 
nurse or something “genteel.” But Lispeth 
did not want to take service. She was very 
happy where she was. 

When travelers — there were not many in 
those years — came in to Kotgarh, Lispeth used 
to lock herself into her own room for fear they 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


7 


might take her away to Silma, or somewhere 
out into the unknown world. 

One day, a few months after she was seven- 
teen years old, Lispeth went out for a walk. 
She did not walk in the manner of English 
ladies — a mile and a half out, and a ride back 
again. She covered between twenty and thirty 
miles in her little constitutional, all about and 
about, between Kotgarh and Narkunda. This 
time she came back at full dusk, stepping down 
the break-neck descent into Kotgarh with 
something heavy in her arms. The chaplain’s 
wife was dozing in the drawing-room when 
Lispeth came in breathing hard and very 
exhausted with her burden. Lispeth put it 
down on the safa, and said simply: “This is 
my husband. I found him on the Bagi Road. 
He has hurt himself. We will nurse him, 
and when he is well, your husband shall marry 
him to me.” 

This was the first mention Lispeth had ever 
made of her matrimonial views, and the chap- 
lain’s wife shrieked with horror. However, 
the man on the sofa needed attention first. 
He was a young Englishman, and his head had 
been cut to the bone by something jagged. 
Lispeth said she had found him down the khud^ 
so she had brought him in. He was breathing 
qiieerly and was unconscious. 

He was put to bed and tended by the chap- 
lain, who knew something of medicine; and 
Lispeth waited outside the door in case she 
could be useful. She explained to the chap- 
lain that this was the man she meant to marry, 


8 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


and the chaplain and his wife lectured her 
severely on the impropriety of her conduct. 
Lispeth listened quietly, and repeated her first 
proposition. It takes a great deal of Christi- 
anity to wipe out uncivilized Eastern instincts, 
such as falling in love at first sight. Lispeth, 
having found the man she worshiped, did not 
see why she should keep silent as to her choice. 
She had no intention of being sent away, 
either. She was going to nurse that English- 
man until he was well enough to marry her. 
This was her little programme. 

After a fortnight of slight fever and inflam- 
mation, the Englishman recovered coherence 
and thanked the chaplain and his wife, and 
Lispeth — especially Lispeth — for their kind- 
ness. He was a traveler in the East, he said 
— they never talked about “globe-trotters” in 
those days, when the P. & O. fleet was young^ 
and small — and had come from Dehra Dun to 
hunt for plants and butterflies among the 
Simla hills. No one at Simla, therefore, knew 
anything about him. He fancied he must have 
fallen over the cliff while stalking a fern on a 
rotten tree-trunk, and that his coolies must 
have stolen his baggage and fled. He thought 
he would go back to Simla when he was a little 
stronger. He desired no more mountaineer- 
ing. 

He made small haste to go away, and recov- 
ered his strength slowly. Lispeth objected to 
being advised either by the chaplain or his 
wife; so the latter spoke to the Englishman, 
and told him how matters stood in Lispeth ’s 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. & 

heart. He laughed a good deal, and said it 
was very pretty and romantic, a perfect idyl of 
the Himalayas; but, as he was engaged to a 
girl at home, he fancied that nothing would 
happen. Certainly he would behave with 
discretion. He did that. Still he found it very 
pleasant to talk to Lispeth, and walk with Lis- 
peth, and say nice things to her, and call her 
pet names while he was getting strong enough 
to go away. It meant nothing at all to him, 
and everything in the world to Lispeth. She 
was very happy while the fortnight lasted, 
because she had found a man to love. 

Being a savage by birth she took no trouble 
to hide her feelings, and the Englishman was 
amused. When he went away, Lispeth walked 
with him, up the Hill as far as Narkunda, very 
troubled and very miserable. The chaplain’s, 
wife, being a good Christian and disliking any- 
thing in the shape of fuss or scandal — Lispeth 
was beyond her management entirely — had 
told the Englishman to tell Lispeth that he was 
coming back to marry her. “She is but a child 
you know, and, I fear, at heart a heathen, “■ 
said the chaplain’s wife. So all the twelve 
miles up the hill the Englishman, with his arm 
around Lispeth’s waist, was assuring the girl 
that he would come back and marry her; and 
Lispeth made him promise over and over again. 
She wept on the Narkunda Ridge till he had 
passed out of sight along the Muttiani path. 

Then she dried her tears and went in to 
Kotgarh again, and said to the chaplain’s wife: 


10 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


“He will come back and marry me. He has 
gone to his own people to tell them so. “ 

And the chaplain’s wife soothed Lispeth and 
said: “He will come back.” At the end of 
two months Lispeth grew impatient, and was 
told that the Englishman had gone over the 
seas to England. She knew where England 
was, because she had read little geography 
primers; but, of course, she had no -conception 
of the nature of the sea, being a Hill girl. 
There was an old puzzle map of the world in 
the house. Lispeth had played with it when 
she was a child. She unearthed it again, and 
put it together of evenings, and cried to her 
self, and tried to imagine where her English- 
man was. As she had no ideas of distance or 
steamboats, her notions were somewhat errone- 
ous. It would not have made the least differ- 
ence had she been perfectly correct; for the 
Englishman had no intention of coming back 
to marry a Hill girl. He forgot all about her 
by the time he was butterfly-hunting in 
Assam. He wrote a book on the East after- 
ward. Lispeth’ s name did not appear. 

At the end of three months, Lispeth made 
daily pilgrimage to Narkunda to see if her 
Englishman was coming along the road. It 
gave her comfort, and the chaplain’s wife find- 
ing her happier thought that she was getting 
over her “barbarous and most indelicate 
folly.” A little later the walks ceased to help 
Lispeth and her temper grew very bad. The 
chaplain’s wife thought this a profitable time 
to let her know the real state of affairs — that 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


11 


the Englishman had only promised his love to 
keep her quiet — that he had never meant any- 
thing, and that it was “wrong and improper “ 
of Lispeth to think of marriage with an Eng- 
lishman, who was of a superior clay, besides 
being promised in marriage to a girl of his 
own people. Lispeth said that all this was 
clearly impossible because he had said he loved 
her, and the chaplain’s wife had with her own 
lips, asserted that the Englishman was coming 
back. 

“How can what he and you said be untrue?” 
asked Lispeth. 

“We said it as an excuse to keep you quiet, 
child,” said the chaplain’s wife. 

“Then you have lied to me,” said Lispeth, 
“you and he?” 

The chaplain’s wife bowed her head, and 
said nothing. Lispeth was silent, too, for a 
little time ; then she went out down the valley, 
and returned in the dress of a Hill girl infa- 
mously dirty, but without the nose and ear- 
rings. She had her hair braided into the long 
pigtail, helped out with black thread that 
Hill women wear. 

“I am going back to my own people,” said 
she. “You have killed Lispeth. There is 
only left old Jadeh’s daughter — the daughter 
of a pahari and the servant of Tarka Devi. 
You are all liars, you English.” 

By the time that the chaplain’s wife had re- 
covered from the shock of the announcement 
that Lispeth had ’verted to her mother’s gods, 
the girl had gone ; and she never came back. 


12 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


She took to her own unclean people sav- 
agely, as if to make up the arrears of the life 
she had stepped out of ; and, in a little time, 
she married a wood-cutter who beat her, after 
the manner of paharis^ and her beauty faded 
soon. 

“There is no law whereby you can account 
for the vagaries of the heathen,” said the 
chaplain’s wife, “and I believe that Lispeth 
was always at heart an infidel.” Seeing she 
had been taken into the Church of England at 
the mature age of five weeks, this statement 
does not do credit to the chaplain’s wife. 

Lispeth was a very old woman when she 
died. She always had a perfect command of 
English, and when she was sufficiently drunk, 
could sometimes be induced to tell the story of 
her first love affair. 

It was hard then to realize that the bleared, 
wrinkled creature, so like a wisp of charred 
rag, could ever have been “Lispeth of the 
Kotgarh Mission.” 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


13 


THREE AND— AN EXTRA. 

‘ ‘When halter and heel ropes are slipped, do not give 
chase with sticks but withdraw.” 

— Punjabi Proverb. 

After marriage arrives a reaction, some- 
times a big, sometimes a little one; but it 
comes sooner or later, and must be tided over 
by both parties if they desire the rest of their 
lives to go with the current. 

In the case of the Cusack-Bremmils this re- 
action did not set in till the third year after 
the wedding. Bremmil was hard to hold at the 
best of times; but he was a beautiful husband 
until the baby died and Mrs. Bremmil wore 
black, and grew thin, and mourned as if the 
bottom of the universe had fallen out. Per- 
haps Bremmil ought to have comforted her. 
He tried to do so, I think; but the more he 
comforted the more Mrs. Bremmil grieved, 
and, consequently, the more uncomfortable 
Bremmil grew. The fact was that they both 
needed a tonic. And they got it. Mrs. Brem- 
mil can afford to laugh now, but it was no 
laughing matter to her at the time. 

You see, Mrs. Hauksbee appeared on the 
horizon; and where she existed was fair 
chance of trouble. At Simla her by-name was 
the ‘‘Stormy Petrel.” She had won that title 


14 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


five times to my own certain knowledge. She 
was a little, brown, thin, almost skinny, 
woman, with big, rolling, violet-blue eyes, 
and the sweetest manners in the world. You 
had only to mention her name at afternoon 
teas for every woman in the room to rise up, 
and call her — well — not — blessed. She was 
clever, witty, brilliant, and sparkling beyond 
most of her kind; but possessed of many 
devils of malice and mischievousness. She 
could be nice, though, even to her own sex. 
But that is another story. 

Bremmil went off at score after the baby’s 
death and the general discomfort that fol- 
lowed, and Mrs. Hauksbee annexed him. She 
took no pleasure in hiding her captives. She 
annexed him publicly, and saw that the pub- 
lic saw it. He rode with her, and walked 
with her, and talked with her, and picnicked 
with her, and tiffined at Peliti’s with her, till 
people put up their eyebrows and said: 
“Shocking!” Mrs. Bremmil stayed at home 
turning over the dead baby’s frocks and cry- 
ing into the empty cradle. She did not care 
to do anything else. But some eight dear, 
affectionate lady friends explained the situation 
at length to her in case she should miss the 
cream of it. Mrs. Bremmil listened quietly, 
and thanked them for their good offices. She 
was not as clever as Mrs. Hauksbee, but she 
was no fool. She kept her own counsel, and 
did not speak to Bremmil of what she had 
heard. This is worth remembering. Speak- 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


15 


ing to, or crying over, a husband never did any 
good yet. 

When Bremmil was at home, which was not 
often, he was more affectionate than usual; 
and that showed his hand. The affection was 
forced partly to soothe his own conscience and 
partly to soothe Mrs. Bremmil. It failed in 
both regards. 

Then “the A.-D.-C. in Waiting was com- 
manded by their Excellencies, Lord and Lady 
Lytton, to invite Mr. and Mrs. Cusack-Brem- 
mil to Peterhoff on July 26, at 9:30 P. M.“ — 
“Dancing” in the bottom-leh-hand corner. 

“I cannot go, “ said Mrs. Bremmil, “it is too 
soon after poor little Florrie . . . but it need 
not stop you, Tom.” 

She meant what she said then, and Brem- 
mil said that he would go just to put in an 
appearance. Here he spoke the thing which 
was not; and Mrs. Bremmil knew it. She 
guessed a woman’s guess is much more accu- 
rate than a man’s certainty — that he had 
meant to go from the first, and with Mrs. 
Hauksbee. She sat down to think, and the 
outcome of her thoughts was that the memory 
of a dead child was worth considerably less 
than the affections of a living husband. She 
made her plan and staked her all upon it. In 
that hour she discovered that she knew Tom 
Bremmil thoroughly, and this knowledge she 
acted on. 

“Tom,” said she, “I shall be dining out at 
the Longmore’s on the evening of the 26th. 
You’d better dine at the club.” 


16 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


This saved Bremmil from making an excuse 
to get away and dine with Mrs. Hauksbee, so 
he was grateful, and felt small and mean at 
the same time — which was wholesome. Brem- 
mil left the house at five for a ride. About 
half-past five in the evening a large leather- 
covered basket came in from Phelps’ for Mrs. 
Bremmil. She was a woman who knew how 
to dress; and she had not spent a week on 
designing that dress and having it gored, and 
hemmed, and herring-boned, and tucked and 
rucked (or whatever the terms are) for noth- 
ing. It was a gorgeous dress — -slight mourn- 
ing. I can’t describe it, but it was what The 
Queen calls “a creation” — a thing that hit you 
straight between the eyes and made you gasp. 
She had not much heart for what she was 
going to do ; but as she glanced at the long 
mirror she had the satisfaction of knowing 
that she had never looked so well in her life. 
She was a large blonde and, when she chose, 
carried herself superbly. 

After the dinner at the Longmores, she went 
on to the dance — a little late — and encoun- 
tered Bremmil with Mrs. Hauksbee on his 
arm. That made her flush, and as the men 
crowded round her for dances she looked mag- 
nificent. She filled up all her dances except 
three, and those she left blank. Mrs. Hauks- 
bee caught her eye once ; and she knew it was 
war — real war — between them. She started 
handicapped in the struggle, for she had 
ordered Bremmil about just the least little bit 
in the world too much ; and he was beginning 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


17 


to resent it. Moreover, he had never seen his 
wife look so lovely. He stared at her from door- 
ways, and glared at her from passages as she 
went about with her partners; and the more 
he stared, the more taken was he. He could 
scarcely believe that this was the woman with 
the red eyes and the black stuff gown who 
used to weep over the eggs at breakfast. 

Mrs, Hauksbee did her best to hold him in 
play, but, after two dances, he crossed over to 
his wife and asked for a dance. 

“I’m afraid you’ve come too late. Mister 
Bremmil, ’’ she said, with her eyes twinkling. 

Then he begged her to give him a dance, 
and as a great favor she allowed him the fifth 
waltz. Luckily five stood vacant on his pro- 
gramme. They danced it together, and there 
was a little flutter round the room. Bremmil 
had a sort of a notion that his wife could dance, 
but he never knew she danced so divinely. At 
the end of that waltz he asked for another — as 
a favor, not as a right; and Mrs. Bremmil 
said: “Show me your programme, dear !” He 
showed it as a naughty little schoolboy hands 
up contraband sweets to a master. There 
was a fair sprinkling of “H” on it besides 
“H” at supper. Mrs. Bremmil said nothing, 
but she smiled contemptuously, ran her pencil 
through seven and nine — two “H’s“and — re- 
turned the card with her own name written 
above — a pet name that only she and her hus- 
band used. Then she shook her finger at him, 
and said, laughing: “Oh, you silly, silly boy!” 

Mrs. Hauksbee heard that, and — she owned 


18 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


as much — felt she had the worst of it. Brem- 
mil accepted seven and nine gratefully. They" 
danced seven, and sat out nine in one of the 
little tents. What Bremmil said and what 
Mrs. Bremmil did is no concern of any one’s. 

When the band struck up “The Roast Beef 
of Old England,’’ the two went out into the 
veranda, and Bremmil began looking for his 
wife’s dandy (this was before ’rickshaw days) 
while she went into the cloakroom. Mrs. 
Hauksbee came up and said: “You take me 
into supper, I think, Mr. Bremmil!” Brem- 
mil turned red and looked foolish: “A — h’m! 
I’m going home with my wife, Mrs. Hauks- 
bee. I think there has been a little mistake. “ 
Being a man, he spoke as though Mrs. Hauks- 
bee were entirely responsible. 

Mrs. Bremmil came out of the cloakroom in 
a swansdown cloak with a white “cloud” round 
her head. She looked radiant; and she had a 
right to. 

The couple went off into the darkness 
together, Bremmil riding very close to the 
dandy. 

Then says Mrs. Hauksbee to me — she looked 
a trifle faded and jaded in the lamplight: 
“Take my word for it, the silliest woman can 
manage a clever man; but it needs a very" 
clever woman to manage a fool.” 

Then we went into supper. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


19 


THROWN AWAY. 

“And some are sulky, while some will plunge 
[So ho ! Steady ! Stand still, you '] 

Some you must gentle, and some you must lunge. 

[There! There! Who wants to kill you?] 

Some — there are losses in every trade — 

Will break their hearts ere bitted and made. 

Will fight like fiends as the rope cuts hard. 

And die dumb-mad in the breaking-yard.” 

— Toolungala Stockyard Chorus. 

To rear a boy under what parents call the 
“sheltered life system” is, if the boy must go 
into the world and fend for himself, not wise. 
Unless he be one in a thousand he has cer- 
tainly to pass through many unnecessary 
troubles; and may, possibly, come to extreme 
grief simply from ignorance of the proper pro- 
portions of things. 

Let a puppy eat the soap in the bathroom or 
chew a newly-blacked boot. He chews and 
chuckles until, by and by, he finds out that 
blacking and old brown Windsor make him 
very sick ; so he argues that soap and boots are 
not wholesome. Any old dog about the house 
will soon show him the unwisdom of biting big 
dogs’ ears. Being young, he remembers and 
goes abroad, at six months, a well-mannered 
little beast with a chastened appetite. If he 
had been kept away from boots and soap and 


20 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


big dogs till he came to the trinity full-grown 
and with developed teeth, just consider how 
fearfully sick and thrashed he would be! 
Apply that motion to the “sheltered life,” and 
see how it works. It does not sound pretty, 
but it is the better of two evils. 

There was a boy once who had been brought 
up under the “sheltered life” theory; and the 
theory killed him dead. He stayed with his 
people all his days, from the hour he was born 
till the hour he went into Sandhurst nearly at 
the top of the list. He was beautifully taught 
in all that wins marks by a private tutor, and 
carried the extra weight of “never having 
given his parents an hour’s anxiety in his life.” 
What he learned at Sandhurst beyond the reg- 
ular routine is of no great consequence. He 
looked about him, and he found soap and black- 
ing, so to speak, very good. He ate a little, 
and came out of Sandhurst not so high as he 
went in. Then there was an interval and a 
scene with his people, who expected much 
from him. Next a year of living “unspotted 
from the world” in a third-rate depot battalion 
where all the juniors were children, and all 
the seniors old women ; and lastly he came out 
to India where he was cut off from the support 
of his parents, and had no one to fall back on 
in time of trouble except himself. 

Now India is a place beyond all others where 
one must not take things too seriously — the 
midday sun always excepted. Too much work 
and too much energy kill a man just as effect- 
ively as too much assorted vice or too much 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


21 


drink. Flirtation does not matter, because 
every one is being transferred and either you 
or she leave the station, and never return. 
Good work does not matter, because a man is 
judged by his worst output and another man 
takes all the credit of his best as a rule. Bad 
work does not matter, because other men do 
worse and imcompetents hang on longer in 
India than anywhere else. Amusements da 
not matter, because you must repeat them as 
soon as you have accomplished them once, and 
most amusements only mean trying to win 
another person’s money. Sickness does not 
matter, because it’s all in the day’s work, and 
if you die another man takes over your place 
and your office in the eight hoursbetween death 
and burial. Nothing matters except home-fur- 
lough and acting allowances, and these only 
because they are scarce. This is a slack, kutcha 
country where all men work with imperfect 
instruments: and the wisest thing is to take na 
one and nothing in earnest, but to escape as 
soon as ever you can to some place where 
amusement is amusement and a reputation 
w^orth the having. 

But this boy — the tale is as old as the Hills 
— came out and took all things seriously. He 
was pretty and was petted. He took the pet- 
tings seriously, and fretted over women not 
worth saddling a pony to call upon. He found 
his new free life in India very good. It does 
look attractive in the beginning, from a sub- 
altern’s point of view — all ponies, partners, 
dancing, and so on. He tasted it as the puppy 


22 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


tastes the soap. Only he came late to the eat- 
ing, with a growing set of teeth. He had no 
sense of balance — just like the puppy — and 
could not understand why he was not treated 
with the consideration he received under his 
father’s roof. This hurt his feelings. 

JUj^He quarreled with other boys and, being 
sensitive to the marrow, remembered these 
quarrels, and they excited him. He found 
whist and gymkhanas, and things of that kind 
(meant to amuse one after office) good ; but he 
took them seriously too, just as he took the 
“head” that followed after drink. He lost his 
money over whist and gymkhanas because they 
were new to him. 

He took his losses seriously, and wasted as 
much energy and interest over a two-gold- 
mohur race for maiden ^/^^^-ponies with their 
manes hogged, as if it had been the Derby. 
One half of this came from inexperience — 
much as the puppy squabbles with the corner 
of the hearthrug and the other half from the 
dizziness bred by stumbling out of his quiet life 
into the glare and excitement of a livelier one. 
No one told him about the soap and the black- 
ing, because an average man takes it for 
granted that an average man is ordinarily 
careful in regard to them. It was pitiful to 
watch The Boy knocking himself to pieces, as 
an overhandled colt falls down and cuts him- 
self when he gets away from the groom. 

This unbridled license in amusements, not 
worth the trouble of breaking line for, much 
less rioting over, endured for six months — all 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


23 


through one cold weather — and then we 
thought that the heat and the knowledge of 
having lost his money and health and lamed 
his horses would sober The Boy down, and he 
would stand steady. In ninety-nine cases out 
of a hundred this would have happened. You 
can see the principle working in any Indian 
station. But this particular case fell through 
because The Boy was sensitive and took things 
seriously — as I may have said some seven 
times before. Of course, we couldn’t tell how 
his excesses struck him personally. They 
were nothing very heart-breaking or above the 
average. He might be crippled for life finan- 
cially, and want a little nursing. Still the 
memory of his performances would wither away 
in one hot weather, and the shroff would help 
him to tide over the money troubles. But he 
must have taken another view altogether and 
have believed himself ruined beyond redemp- 
tion. His colonel talked to him severely when 
the cold weather ended. That made him more 
wretched than ever; and it was only an ordi- 
nary “colonel’s wigging!’’ 

What follows is a curious instance of the 
fashion in which we are all linked together and 
made responsible for one another. The thing 
that kicked the beam in The Boy’s mind was a 
remark that a woman made when he was talk- 
ing to her. There is no use in repeating it, 
for it was only a cruel little sentence, rapped 
out before thinking, that made him flush to the 
roots of his hair. He kept himself to himself 
for three days, and then put in for two days’ 


24 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


leave to go shooting near a canal engineer’s 
rest house about thirty miles out. He got his 
leave, and that night at mess was noisier and 
more offensive than ever. He said that he 
was “going to shoot big game,” and left at 
half-past ten o’clock in an ekka. Partridge — 
which was the only thing a man could get near 
the rest house — is not big game ; so every one 
laughed. 

Next morning one of the majors came in 
from short leave, and heard that The Boy had 
gone out to shoot “big game.” The major 
had taken an interest in The Boy, and had, 
more than once, tried to check him in the cold 
weather. The major put up his eyebrows 
when he heard of the expedition and went to 
The Boy’s rooms, where he rummaged. 
Presently he came out and found me leaving 
cards on the mess. There was no one else in 
the ante-room. 

He said: “The Boy has gone out shooting. 
Does a man shoot tetur with a revolver and a 
writing-case!” 

I said: “Nonsense, major!” for I saw what 
was in his mind. 

He said: “Nonsense or no nonsense. I’m 
going to the canal now — at once. I don’t feel 
easy.” 

Then he thought for a minute, and said: 
“Can you lie?” 

“You know best,” I answered. “It’s my 
profession. ” 

“Very well,” said the major; “you must 
come out with me now — at once — in an ekka 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


25 


to the canal to shoot black-buck. Go and put 
on a shikar-Y\\. — quick — and drive here with a 
gun.” 

The major was a masterful man ; and I knew 
that he would not give orders for nothing. So 
I obeyed, and on return found the major 
packed up and in an ekka — gun-cases and food 
slung below — all ready for a shooting-trip. 

He dismissed the driver and drove himself. 
We jogged along quietly while in the station ; 
but as soon as we got to the dusty road across 
the plains, he made that pony fly. A country 
bred can do nearly anything at a pinch. We 
covered the thirty miles in under three hours, 
but the poor brute was nearly dead. 

Once I said: “What’s the blazing hurry ^ 
major?” 

He said quietly: “The Boy has been alone, 
by himself for — one, two, five — fourteen hours 
now! I tell you, I don’t feel easy.’’ 

This uneasiness spread itself to me, and I 
helped to beat the pony. 

When we came to the canal engineer's rest 
house the major called for The Boy’s servant; 
but there was no answer. Then we went up 
to the house, calling for The Boy by name ; 
but there was no answer. 

“Oh, he’s out shooting,” said I. 

Just then I saw through one of the win- 
dows a little hurricane-lamp burning. This 
was at four in the afternoon. We both stopped 
dead in the veranda, holding our breath to 
catch every sound; and we heard, inside the 
room, the ''brr—brr — brr'' of a multitude of 


26 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


flies. The major said nothing, but he took off 
his helmet and we entered very softly. 

The Boy was dead on the charpoy in the cen- 
ter of the bare, lime-washed room. He had 
shot his head nearly to pieces with his revolver. 
The gun-cases were still strapped, so was the 
bedding, and on the table lay The Boy’s writ- 
ing-case with photographs. He had gone 
away to die like a poisoned rat ! 

The major said to himself softly: “Poor 
Boy! Poor, poor devil!’’ Then he turned 
away from the bed and said : “I want your 
help in this business.’’ 

Knowing The Boy was dead by his own 
hand, I saw exactly what that help would be, 
so I passed over to the table, took a chair, lit 
a cheroot, and began to go through the writing 
case, the major looking over my shoulder and 
repeating to himself: “We came too late! 
Like a rat in a hole! Poor, poor devil!’’ 

The Boy must have spent half the night in 
writing to his people, and to his colonel and to 
a girl at home; and as soon as he had finished 
must have shot himself, for he had been dead 
a long time when we came in. 

I read all that he had written, and passed 
over each sheet to the major as I finished it. 

We saw from his accounts how very seriously 
he had taken everything. He wrote about 
“disgrace which he was unable to bear’’ — 
“indelible shame,’’ “criminal folly,’’ “wasted 
life,” and so on; besides a lot of private things 
to his father and mother much too sacred to 
put into print. The letter to the girl at home 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


27 


was the most pitiful of all ; and I choked as I 
read it. The major made no attempt to keep 
dry-eyed. I respected him for that. He read 
and rocked himself to and fro, and simply cried 
like a woman without caring to hide it. The 
letters were so dreary and hopeless and touch- 
ing. We forgot all about The Boy’s follies, 
and only thought of the poor thing on the 
charpoy and the scrawled sheets in our hands. 
It was utterly impossible to let the letters go 
home. They would have broken his father’s 
heart and killed his mother after killing her 
belief in her son. 

At last the major dried his eyes openly, and 
said: “Nice sort of thing to spring on an Eng- 
lish family! What shall we do?’’ 

I said, knowing what the major had brought 
me out for: “The Boy died of cholera. We 
were with him at the time. We can’t commit 
ourselves to half-measures. Come along. ’ ’ 

Then began one of the most grimy comic 
scenes I have ever taken part in — the concoc- 
tion of a big, written lie, bolstered with evi- 
dence, to soothe The Boy’s people at home. I 
began the rough draft of the letter, the major 
throwing in hints here and there while he 
gathered up all the stuff that The Boy had 
written and burned it in the fireplace. It was 
a hot, still evening when we began, and the 
lamp burned very badly. In due course I got 
the draft to my satisfaction, setting forth how 
The Boy was the pattern of all virtues, beloved 
by his regiment, with every promise of a great 
career before him, and so on; how we had 


28 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


helped him through the sickness — it was no 
time for little lies you will understand — and 
how he had died without pain. I choked while 
I was putting down these things and thinking 
of the poor people who would read them. 
Then I laughed at the grotesqueness of the 
affair, and the laughter mixed itself up with 
the choke — and the major said that we both 
wanted drinks. 

I am afraid to say how much whisky we 
drank before the letter was finished. It had 
not the least effect on us. Then we took off 
The Boy’s watch, locket, and rings. 

Lastly, the major said: “We must send a 
lock of hair, too. A woman values that. ’ ’ 

But there were reasons why we could not 
find a lock fit to send. The Boy was black 
haired, and so was the major, luckily. I cut 
off a piece of the major’s hair above the tern* 
pie with a knife, and put it into the packet we 
were making. The laughing-fit and the chokes 
got hold of me again, and I had to stop. The 
major was nearly as bad; and we both knew 
that the worst part of the work was to come. 

We sealed up the packet, photograph, locket, 
seals, ring, letter, and lock of hair with The 
Boy’s sealing-wax and The Boy’s seal. 

Then the major said: “For God’s sake, let’s 
get outside — away from the room — and think !’’ 

We went outside, and walked on the banks 
of the canal for an hour, eating and drinking 
what we had with us, until the moon rose. I 
know now exactly how a murderer feels. 
Finally, we forced ourselves back to the room 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


29 


with the lamp and the other thing in it, and 
began to take up the next piece of work. I 
am not going to write about this. It was too 
horrible. We burned the bedstead and drop- 
ped the ashes into the canal ; we took up the 
matting of the room and treated that in the 
same way. I went off to a village and bor- 
rowed two big hoes — I did not want the villa- 
gers to help — while the major arranged the 
other matters. It took us four hours’ hard 
work to make the grave. As we worked we 
argued out whether it was right to say as much 
as we remembered of the burial of the dead. 
We compromised things by saying the Lord’s 
Prayer with a private unofficial prayer for the 
peace of the soul of The Boy. Then we filled 
in the grave and went into the veranda — not 
the house — to lie down to sleep. We were 
dead tired. 

When he woke the major said wearily: 
‘‘We can’t go back till to-morrow. We must 
give him a decent time to die in. He died 
early this morning, remember. That seems 
more natural.” So the major must have been 
lying awake all the time, thinking. 

I said: ‘‘Then why didn’t we bring the 
body back to cantonments?” 

The major thought for a minute: ‘‘Because 
the people bolted when they heard of the 
cholera. And the ekka has gone ! ’ ’ 

That was strictly true. We had forgotten 
all about the ekka-^ony, and he had gone 
home. 

So we were left there alone all that stifling 


30 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


day, in the canal rest house, testing and 
retesting our story of The Boy’s death to see 
if it was weak in any point. A native turned 
up in the afternoon, but we said that a Sahib 
was dead of cholera, and he ran away. As the 
dusk gathered, the major told me all his fears 
about The Boy, and awful stories of suicide or 
nearly-carried-out suicide — tales that made 
one’s hair crisp. He said that he himself had 
once gone into the same Valley of the Shadow 
as The Boy, when he was young and new to 
the country; so he understood how things 
fought together in The Boy’s poor jumbled 
head. He also said that youngsters, in their 
repentant moments, consider their sins much 
more serious and ineffaceable than they really 
are. We talked together all through the eve- 
ning and rehearsed the story of the death of 
The Boy. As soon as the moon as up, and 
The Boy, theoretically, just buried, we struck 
across country for the station. We walked 
from eight till six o’clock in the morning; but 
though we were dead tired, we did not forget 
to go to The Boy’s rooms and put away his 
revolver with the proper amount of cartridges 
in the pouch. Also to set his writing case on 
the table. We found the colonel and reported 
the death, feeling more like murderers than 
ever. Then we went to bed and slept the 
clock round ; for there was no more in us. 

The tale had credence as long as was neces- 
sary, for every one forgot about The Boy be* 
fore a fortnight was over Many people, how- 
ever, found time to say that the major had 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


31 


behaved scandalously in not bringing in the 
body for a regimental funeral. The saddest 
thing of all was the letter from The Boy’s 
mother to the major and me — with big inky 
blisters all over the sheet. She wrote the 
sweetest possible things about our great kind- 
ness, and the obligation she would be under 
to us as long as she lived. 

All things considered, she was under an 
obligation ; but not exactly as she meant. 


32 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


MISS YOUGHAL’S SAIS. 

When Man and Woman are agreed, what can the 
Razi do? — Mahommedan Proverb. 

Some people say that there is no romance in 
India. Those people are wrong. Our lives 
hold quite as much romance as is good for us. 
-Sometimes more. 

Strickland was in the police, and people did 
not understand him ; so they said he was a 
doubtful sort of a man and passed by on the 
other side. Strickland had himself to thank 
for this. He held the extraordinary theory 
that a policeman in India should try to know 
as much about the natives as the natives 
themselves. Now in the whole of Upper 
India, there is only one man who can pass for 
Hindu or Mahommedan, chamar or faquir^ as 
he pleases. He is feared and respected by the 
natives from the Ghor Kathri to the Jamma 
Musjid; and he is supposed to have the gift of 
invisibility and executive control over many 
devils. But what good has this done him with 
the government? None in the world. He has 
never got Simla for his charge; and his name 
is almost unknown to Englishmen. 

Strickland was foolish enough to take that 
man for his model; and following out his 
n,bsurd theory, dabbled in unsavory places no 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


33 


respectable man would think of exploring — all 
among the native riff-raff. He educated him- 
self in this peculiar way for seven years, and 
people could not appreciate it. He was perpet- 
ually “going Fantee” among natives, which, 
of course, no man with any sense believes in. 
He was initiated into the Sat Bhai at Allahabad 
once, when he was on leave; he knew the 
Lizard-Song of the Sansis, and the Halli-Hukk 
dance, which, is a religious can-can of a start- 
ling kind. When a man knows who dances the 
Halli-Hukk^ and how, and when, and where, 
he knows something to be proud of. He has 
gone deeper than the skin. But Strickland 
was not proud, though he had helped once, at 
Jagadhri, at the Painting of the Death Bull, 
which no Englishman must even look upon; 
had mastered the thieves’-patter of the chan- 
gars; had taken a Eusufzai horse-thief alone 
near Attock ; and had stood under the mimbar- 
board of a Border mosque and conducted ser- 
vice in the manner of a Sunni Mollah. 

His crowning achievement was spending 
eleven days as a faquir in the gardens of Baba 
Atal, at Amritsar, and there picking up the 
threads of the great Nasiban murder case. 
But people said, justly enough: “Why on 
earth can’t Strickland sit in his office and write 
up his diary, and recruit, and keep quiet, in- 
stead of showing up the incapacity of his 
seniors?” So the Nasiban murder case did 
him no good departmentally ; but, after his 
first feeling of wrath, he returned to his out- 
landish custom of prying into native life. By 


34 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


the way, when a man once acquires a taste 
for this particular amusement, it abides with 
him all his days. It is the most fascinating 
thing in the world, love not excepted. When 
other men took ten days to the Hills, Strick- 
land took leave for what he called shikar^ put 
on the disguise that appealed to him at the 
time, stepped down into the brown crowd, and 
was swallowed up for a while. He was a 
quiet, dark young fellow — spare, black eyes — 
and, when he was not thinking of something 
else, a very interesting companion. Strick- 
land on native progress as he had seen it was 
worth hearing. Natives hated Strickland ; but 
they were afraid of him. He knew too much. 

When the Youghals came into the station, 
Strickland — very gravely, as he did everything 
— fell in love with Miss Youghal; and she, 
after a while, fell in love with him, because 
she could not understand him. Then Strick- 
land told the parents; but Mrs. Youghal said 
she was not going to throw her daughter into 
the worst paid department in the empire, and 
old Youghal said, in so many words, that he 
mistrusted Strickland’s ways and works, and 
would thank him not to speak or write to his 
daughter any more. “Very well,’’ said 
Strickland, for he did not wish to make his 
lady-love’s life a burden. After one long talk 
with Miss Youghal, he dropped the business 
entirely. 

The Youghals went up to Simla in April. 

In July Strickland secured three months’ 
leave on “urgent private affairs.’’ He locked 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


35 


up his house— though not a native in the 
Providence would wittingly have touched 
“Estreekin Sahib’s” gear for the world — and 
went down to see a friend of his, an old dyer, 
at Tarn Taran. 

Here all trace of him was lost, until a sais 
met me on the Simla Mall with this extraordi- 
nary note : 

“Dear Old Man: Please give bearer a box 
of cheroots — Supers, No. i, for preference. 
They are freshest at the Club. I’ll repay 
when I reappear; but at present I’m out of 
society. Yours, 

E. Strickland.” 

I ordered two boxes, and handed them over 
to the sais with my love. That sais was 
Strickland, and he was in old Youghal’s em- 
ploy, attached to Miss Youghal’s Arab. The 
poor fellow was suffering for an English 
smoke, and knew that whatever happened I 
should hold my tongue tlil the business was 
over. 

Later on Mrs. Youghal, who was wrapped 
up in her servants, began talking at houses 
where she called of her paragon among saises 
— the man who was never too busy to get up 
in the morning and pick flowers for the break- 
fast table, and who blacked — actually blacked 
— the hoofs of his horse like a London coach- 
man! The turnout of Miss Youghal’s Arab 
was a wonder and a delight. Strickland — 
Dulloo, I mean — found his reward in the pretty 
things that Miss Youghal said to him when she 


36 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


went out riding. Her parents were pleased 
to find she had fogotten all her foolishness for 
young Strickland and said she was a good girl. 

Strickland vows that the two months of his 
service were the most rigid mental discipine 
he has ever gone through. Quite apart from 
the little fact that the wife of one of his fellow- 
saises fell in love with him and then tried to 
poison him with arsenic because he would 
have nothing to do with her, he had to school 
himself into keeping quiet when Miss Youghal 
went out riding with some man who tried to 
flirt with her, and he was forced to trot behind 
carrying the blanket and hearing every word ! 
Also, he had to keep his temper when he was 
slanged in “Benmore” porch, by a policeman 
— especially once when he was abused by a 
Naik he had himself recruited from Isser Jang 
village — or worse still, when a young subal- 
tern called him a pig for not making way 
quickly enough. 

But the life had its compensations. He ob- 
tained great insight into the ways and thefts 
of saises — enough, he says, to have summarily 
convicted half the chamar population of the 
Punjab if he had been on business. He be- 
came one of the leading players at knuckle- 
bones, which jhampanis and moMy saises play 
while they are waiting outside the Govern- 
ment House or the Gaiety Theater of nights; 
he learned to smoke tobacco that was three- 
fourths cow-dung; and he heard the wisdom 
of the grizzled Jemadar of the Government 
House saises, whose words are valuable. He 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


37 


saw many things which amused him; and he 
states, on honor, that no man can appreciate 
Simla properly, till he has seen it from the 
sais's point of view. He also says that, if he 
chose to write all he saw, his head would be 
broken in several places. 

Strickland’s account of the agony he endured 
on wet nights, hearing the music and seeing 
the lights in “Benmore,” with his toes ting- 
ling for a waltz and his head in a horse- 
blanket, is rather amusing. One of these days, 
Strickland is going to write a little book on 
his experiences. That book will be worth 
buying ; and even more worth suppressing. 

Thus, he served faithfully as Jacob served 
for Rachel ; and his leave was nearly at an end 
when the explosion came. He had really done 
his best to keep his temper in the hearing of 
the flirtations I have mentioned; but he broke 
down at last. An old and very distinguished 
general took Miss Youghal for a ride, and 
began that specially offensive “you’re-only-a- 
little-girT'sort of flirtation — most difficult for a 
woman to turn aside deftly, and most mad- 
dening to listen to. Miss Youghal was shak- 
ing with fear at the things he said in the hear- 
ing of her sais. Dulloo — Strickland — stood it 
as long as he could. Then he caught hold of 
the general’s bridle, and in most fluent 
English, invited him to step off and be heaved 
over the cliff. Next minute. Miss Youghal 
began crying ; and Strickland saw that he had 
hopelessly given himself away, and every- 
thing was over. 


38 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


The general nearly had a fit, while Miss 
Youghal was sobbing out the story of the dis- 
guise and the engagement that wasn’t recog- 
nized by the parents. Strickland was furiously 
angry -with himself and more angry with the 
general for forcing his hand; so he said noth- 
ing, but held the horse’s head and prepared to 
thrash the general as some sort of satisfaction, 
but when the general had thoroughly grasped 
the story, and knew who Strickland was, he 
began to puff and blow in the saddle, and near- 
ly rolled off with laughing. He said Strickland 
deserved a V. C., if it were only for putting on 
a sats's blanket. Then he called himself 
names, and vowed that he deserved a thrash- 
ing, but he was too old to take it from Strick- 
land. Then he complimented Miss Youghal 
on her lover. The scandal of the business 
never struck him ; for he was a nice old man, 
with a weakness for flirtations. Then he 
laughed again, and said that old Youghal was 
a fool. Strickland let go of the cob’s head, 
and suggested that the general had better help 
them, if that was his opinion. Strickland 
knew Youghal’s weakness for men with titles 
and letters after their names and high official 
position. “It’s rather like a forty-minute 
farce,’’ said the general, “but begad, I will 
help, if it’s only to escape that tremendous 
thrashing I deserved. Go along to your home, 
my j^zw-policeman, and change into decent kit, 
and I’ll attack Mr. Youghal. Miss Youghal, 
may I ask you to canter home and wait?” 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


39 


About seven minutes later, there was a wild 
burroosh at the Club. A sais, with blanket 
and head-rope, was asking all the men he 
knew: “For heaven’s sake lend me decent 
clothes!” As the men did not recognize him, 
there were some peculiar scenes before Strick- 
land could get a hot bath, with soda in it, in 
one room, a shirt here, a collar there, a pair 
of trousers elsewhere, and so on. He galloped 
off, with half the Club wardrobe on his back, 
and an utter stranger’s pony under him, to 
the house of old Youghal. The general, 
arrayed in purple and fine linen, was before 
him. What the general had said Strickland 
never knew, but Youghal received Strick- 
land with moderate civility; and Mrs. Youg- 
hal, touched by the devotion of the trans- 
formed Dulloo, was almost kind. The gen- 
eral beamed and chuckled, Jand Miss Yong- 
hal came in, and almost before old Yong- 
hal knew where he was, the parental 
consent had been wrenched out, and Strick- 
land had departed with Miss Youghal to the 
telegraph office to wire for his kit. The final 
embarrassment was when an utter stranger 
attacked him on the Mall and asked for the 
stolen pony. 

So, in the end, Strickland and Miss Youg- 
hal were married, on the strict understand- 
ing that Strickland should drop his old ways, 
and stick to departmental routine which pays 
best and leads to Simla. Strickland was far 
too fond of his wife just then to break his word, 
but it was a sore trial to him ; for the streets 


40 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


and the bazars, and the sounds in them, were 
full of meaning to Strickland, and these called 
to him to come back and take up his wander- 
ings and his discoveries. Some day I will tell 
you how he broke his promise to help a friend. 
That was long since, and he has by this time 
been nearly spoiled for what he would call 
shikar. He is forgetting the slang, and the 
beggar’s cant, and the marks, and the signs, 
and the drift of the undercurrents, which if a 
man would master, he must always continue 
to learn. 

But he fills in his departmental returns 
beautifully. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


41 


“YOKED WITH AN UNBELIEVER.” 

*T am dying for you, and you are dying for another. 

— Punjabi Proverb. 

When the Gravesend tender left the P. & 
O. steamer for Bombay and went back to catch 
the train to town, there were many people in 
it crying. But the one who wept most, and 
most openly, was Miss Agnes Laiter. She had 
reason to cry, because the only man she ever 
loved — or ever could love, so she said — was 
going out to India; and India, as every one 
knows, is divided equally between jungle, 
tigers, cobras, cholera and sepoys. 

Phil Garron, leaning over the side of the 
steamer in the rain, felt very unhappy too; 
but he did not cry. He was sent out to “tea. ” 
What “tea” meant he had not the vaguest 
idea, but fancied that he would have to ride 
on a prancing horse over hills covered with 
tea- vires, and draw a sumptuous salary for 
doing so; and he was very grateful to his 
uncle for getting him the berth. He was 
really going to reform all his slack, shiftless 
ways, save a large proportion of his magnifi- 
cent salary yearly, and, in a very short time, 
return to marry Agnes Laiter. Phil Garron 
had been lying loose on his friends’ hands 
for three years, and, as he had nothing 


42 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


to do, he naturally fell in love. He was very 
nice ; but he was not strong in his views and 
opinions and principles, and though he never 
came to actual grief his friends were thankful 
when he said good-by, and went out to the 
mysterious “tea” business near Darjiling. 
They said: “God bless you, dear boy! Let 
us never see your face again, ” or at least that 
was what Phil was given to understand. 

When he sailed he was very full of a great 
plan to prove himself several hundred times 
better than any one had given him credit for 
— to work like a horse, and triumphantly marry 
Agnes Laiter. He had many good points 
besides his good looks; his only fault being 
that he was weak, the least little bit in the 
world weak. He had as much notion of econ- 
omy as the morning sun, and yet you could not 
lay your hand on any one item, and say: 
“Herein Phil Garron is extravagant or reck- 
less.” Nor could you point out any particular 
vice in his character; but he was “unsatisfac- 
tory” and as workable as putty. 

Agnes Laiter went about her duties at home 
— her family objected to the engagement — with 
red eyes, while Phil was sailing to ilarjiling 
— “a port on the Bengal Ocean,” as his mother 
used to tell her friends. He was popular 
enough on board ship, made many acquain- 
tances and a moderately large liquor-bill, and 
sent off huge letters to Agnes Laiter at each 
port. Then he fell to work on this plantation, 
somewhere between Darjiling and Kangra, 
and, though the salary and the hovse and the 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


43 


work were not quite all he had fancied, he 
succeeded fairly well, and gave himself much 
unnecessary credit for his perseverance. 

In the course of time, as he settled more into 
collar, and his work grew fixed before him, 
the face of Agnes Laiter went out of his mind 
and only came when he was at leisure, which 
was not often. He would forget all about her 
for a fortnight, and remember her with a start, 
like a schoolboy who has forgotten to learn his 
lesson. She did not forget Phil, because she 
was of the kind that never forgets. Only, 
another man — a really desirable young man — 
presented himself before Mrs. Laiter; and the 
chance of a marriage with Phil was as far off 
as ever; and his letters were so unsatisfactory; 
and there was a certain amount of domestic 
pressure brought to bear on the girl ; and the 
young man really was an eligible person as 
incomes go; and the end of all things was that 
Agnes married him, and wrote a tempestuous 
whirlwind of a letter to Phil in the wilds of 
Darjiling, and said she should never know a 
happy moment all the rest of her life. Which 
was a true prophecy. 

Phil got that letter, and held himself ill- 
treated. This was two years after he had come 
out; but by dint of thinking fixedly of Agnes 
Laiter, and looking at her photograph, and 
patting himself on the back for being one of 
the most constant lovers in history, and warm- 
ing to the work as he went on, he really fan- 
cied that he had been very hardly used. He 
sat down and wrote one final letter —a really 


44 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


pathetic “world without end, amen,” epistle; 
explaining how he would be true to eternity, 
and that all women were very much alike, and 
he would hide his broken heart, etc. , etc. ; but 
if, at any future time, etc., etc., he could 
afford to wait, etc., etc., unchanged affections, 
etc., etc., return to her old love, etc., etc., for 
eight closely- written pages. From an artistic 
point of view, it was very neat work, but an 
ordinary Philistine, who knew the state of 
Phil’s real feelings — not the ones he rose to 
as he went on writing — would have called it 
the thoroughly mean and selfish work of a 
thoroughly mean and selfish, weak man. But 
this verdict would have been incorrect. Phil 
paid for the postage, and felt every word he 
had written for at least two days and a half. 
It was the last flicker before the light went out. 
That letter made Agnes Laiter very unhappy, 
and she cried and put it away in her desk, and 
became Mrs. Somebody Else for the good of 
her family. Which is the first duty of every 
Christian maid. 

Phil went his ways, and thought no more of 
his letter, except as an artist thinks of a 
neatly touched-in sketch. His ways were not 
bad, but they were not altogether good until 
they brought him across Dunmaya, the daughter 
of a Rajput ex-Subadar-major of our native 
army. The girl had a strain of Hill blood in 
her, and like the Hill women, was not a purdah 
nashin. Where Phil met her, or how he heard 
of her, does not matter. She was a good girl 
and handsome, and in her way, very clever 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


45 


and shrewd; though, of course, a little hard. 
It is to be remembered that Phil was living 
very comfortably, denying himself no small 
luxury, never putting by an anna, very satis- 
fied with himself and his good intentions, was 
dropping all his English correspondents one 
by one, and beginning more and more to look 
upon this land as his home. Some men fall 
this way ; and they are of no use afterward. 
The climate where he was stationed was good, 
and it really did not seem to him that there 
was anything to go home for. 

He did what many planters have done before 
him — that is to say he made up his mind to 
marry a Hill girl and settle down. He was 
seven and twenty then, with a long life before 
him, but no spirit to go through with it. So 
he married Dunmaya by the forms of the 
English Church, and some fellow-planters said 
he was a fool, and some said he was a wise 
man. Dunmaya was a thoroughly honest girl, 
and, in spite of her reverence for an English- 
man, had a reasonable estimate of her hus- 
band’s weaknesses. She managed him ten- 
derly, and became, in less than a year, a very 
passable imitation of an English lady in dress 
and carriage. (It is curious to think that a 
Hill man, after a lifetime’s education is a Hill 
man still; but a Hill woman can in six months 
master most of the ways of her English sisters. 
There was a coolie-woman once. But that is 
another story.) Dunmaya dressed by prefer- 
ence in black and yellow, and looked well. 

Meantime the letter lay in Agnes’ desk, and 


46 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


now and again she would think of poor, reso- 
lute, hard-working Phil among the cobras and 
tigers of Darjiling, toiling in the vain hope 
that she might come back to him. Her hus- 
band was worth ten Phils, except that he had 
rheumatism of the heart. Three years after 
he was married — and after he had tried Nice 
and Algeria for his complaint — he went to 
Bombay, where he died, and set Agnes free. 
Being a devout woman, she looked on his- 
death, and the place of it, as a direct interposi- 
tion of Providence, and when she had recov- 
ered from the shock she took out and reread 
Phil’s letter with the “etc., etc.,” and the big 
dashes, and the little dashes, and kissed it sev- 
eral times. No one knew her in Bombay; she 
had her husband's income, which was a large 
one, and Phil was close at hand. It was wrong 
and improper, of course, but she decided, as. 
heroines do in novels, to find her old lover, to 
offer him her hand and her gold, and with him 
spend the rest of her life in some spot far from: 
unsympathetic souls. She sat for two months, 
alone in Watson’s Hotel, elaborating this 
decision, and the picture was a pretty one. 
Then she set out in search of Phil Garron, 
assistant on a tea pantation with a more than, 
usually unpronounceable name. 

She found him. She spent a month over it,, 
for his plantation was not in the Darjiling dis- 
trict at all, but nearer Kangra. Phil was very 
little altered, and Dunmaya was very nice 
to her. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


47 


Now the particular sin and shame of the 
whole business is that Phil who really is not 
worth thinking of twice, was and is loved by 
Dunmaya, and more than loved by Agnes, the 
whole of whose life he seems to have spoiled. 

Worst of all, Dunmaya is making a decent 
man of him ; and he will be ultimately saved 
from perdition through her training. 

Which is manifestly unfair. 


48 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


FALSE DAWN. 

To-night God knows what thing shall tide, 

The Earth is racked and faint — 

Expectant, sleepless, open-eyed; 

And we, who from the Earth were made. 

Thrill with our Mother’s pain. 

— In Durance. 

No man will ever know the exact truth of 
this story; though women may sometimes 
whisper it to one another after a dance, when 
they are putting up their hair for the night 
and comparing lists of victims. A man, of 
course, cannot assist at these functions. So 
the tale must be told from the outside — in the 
dark — all wrong. 

Never praise a sister to a sister, in the hope 
of your compliments reaching the proper ears, 
and so preparing the way for you later on. 
Sisters are women first, and sisters afterward ; 
and you will find that you do yourself harm. 

Saumarez knew this when he made up his 
mind to propose to the elder Miss Copleigh. 
Saumarez was a strange man, with few merits, 
so far as men could see, though he was 
popular with women, and carried enough 
conceit to stock a viceroy’s council and leave 
a little over for the commander-in-chief ’s staff. 
He was a civilian. Very many women took an 
interest in Saumarez, perhaps because his 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


49 


manner to them was offensive. If you hit a 
pony over the nose at the outset of your ac- 
quaintance, he may not love you, but he will 
take a deep interest in your movements ever 
afterward. The elder Miss Copleigh was nice, 
phimp, winning and pretty. The younger 
was not so pretty, and, from men disregarding 
the hint set forth above, her style was repellant 
and unattractive. Both girls had, practically, 
the same figure, and there was a strong like- 
ness between them in look and voice; though 
no one could doubt for an instant which was 
the nicer of the two. 

Saumarez made up his mind, as soon as they 
came into the station from Behar, to marry 
the elder one. At least, we all made sure that 
he would, which comes to the same thing. 
She was twenty-two, and he was thirty-three, 
with pay and allowances of nearly fourteen 
hundred rupees a month. So the match, as 
we arranged it, was in every way a good one. 
Saumarez was his name, and summary was his 
nature, as a man once said. Having drafted 
his resolution, he formed a select committee 
of one to sit upon it, and resolved to take his 
time. In our unpleasant slang, the Copleigh 
girls “hunted in couples." That is to say, 
you could do nothing with one without the 
other. They were very loving sisters; but 
their mutual affection was sometimes incon- 
venient. Saumarez held the balance-hair true 
between them, and none but himself could 
have said to which side his heart inclined; 
though every one guessed. He rode with 

4 


50 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


them a good deal and danced with them, but 
he never succeeded in detaching them from 
each other for any length of time. 

Women said that the two girls kept together 
through deep mistrust, each fearing that the 
other would steal a march on her. But that 
has nothing to do with a man. Saumarez 
was silent for good or bad, and as business- 
likely attentive as he could be, having due 
regard to his work and his polo. Beyond doubt 
both girls were fond of him. 

As the hot weather drew nearer, and Sau- 
marez made no sign, women said that you could 
see their trouble in the eyes of the girls — that 
they were looking strained, anxious, and irri- 
table. Men are quite blind in these matters 
unless they have more of the woman than the 
man in their composition, in which case it does 
not matter what they say or think. I maintain 
it was the hot April days that took the color 
out of the Copleigh girls’ cheeks. They should 
have been sent to the Hills early. No one — 
man or woman — feels an angel when the hot 
weather is approaching. The younger sister 
grew more cynical — not to say acid — in her 
ways; and the winningness of the elder wore 
thin. There was more effort in it. 

Now the station wherein all these things 
happened was, though not a little one, off the 
line of rail, and suffered through want of 
attention. There were no gardens or bands 
or amusements worth speaking of, and it was 
nearly a day’s journey to come into Lahore for 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


51 


a dance. People were grateful for small 
things to interest them. 

About the beginning of May, and just before 
the final exodus of Hill-goers, when the 
weather was very hot and there were not more 
than twenty people in the station, Saumarez 
gave a moon-light riding-picnic at an old tomb, 
six miles away, near the bed of the river. It 
was a “Noah’s Ark” picnic; and there was 
to be the usual arrangement of a quarter-mile 
intervals between each couple, on account of 
the dust. Six couples came altogether, includ- 
ing chaperons. Moonlight picnics are useful 
just at the very end of the season, before all 
the girls go away to the Hills. They lead to 
understandings, and should be encouraged by 
chaperons ; especially those whose girls look 
sweetest in riding habits. I knew a case once. 
But that is another story. That picnic was 
called the “Great Pop picnic,” because every 
one knew Saumarez would propose then to the 
eldest Miss Copleigh; and besides his affair 
there was another which might possibly come 
to happiness. The social atmosphere was 
heavily charged and wanted clearing. 

We met at the parade-ground at ten: the 
night was fearfully hot. The horses sweated 
even at walking pace, but anything was better 
than sitting still in our own dark houses. 
When we moved off under the full moon we 
were four couples, one triplet, and Mr. Sau- 
marez rode with the Copleigh girls, and I loit- 
ered at the tail of the procession, wondering 
with whom Saumarez would ride home. 


52 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Every one was happy and contented ; but we 
all felt that things were going to happen. We 
rode slowly: and it was nearly midnight before 
we reached the old tomb, facing the ruined 
tank, in the decayed gardens where we were 
going to eat and drink. I was late in coming 
up; and before I went into the garden I saw 
that the horizon to the north carried a faint, 
dun-colored feather. But no one would have 
thanked me for spoiling so well-managed an 
entertainment as this picnic — and a dust storm, 
more or less, does no great harm. 

We gathered by the tank. Some one had 
brought out a banjo — which is a most senti- 
mental instrument — and three or four of us 
sang. You must not laugh at this. Our 
amusements in out-of-the-way stations are very 
few indeed. Then we talked in groups or 
together, lying under the trees, with the sun- 
baked roses dropping their petals on our feet, 
until supper was ready. It was a beautiful 
f upper, as cold and as iced as you could wish ; 
and we stayed long over it. 

I had felt that the air was growing hotter and 
hotter; but nobody seemed to notice it until the 
moon went out and a burning hot wind began 
lashing the orange trees with a sound like the 
noise of the sea. Before we knew where we 
were, the dust-storm was on us, and every- 
thing was roaring whirling darkness. The 
supper table was blown bodily into the tank. 
We were afraid of staying anywhere near the 
old tomb for fear it might be blown down. 
So we felt our way to the orange trees where 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


53 


the horses were picketed and waited for the 
storm to blow over. Then the little light that 
was left vanished, and yon could not see your 
hand before your face. The air was heavy 
with dust and sand from the bed of the river, 
that filled boots and pockets and drifted down 
necks and coated eyebrows and mustaches. It 
was one of the worst dust storm of the year. 
We were all huddled together close to the 
trembling horses, with the thunder chattering 
overhead, and the lightning spurting like water 
from a sluice, all ways at once. There was no 
danger, of course, unless the horses broke loose. 
I was standing with my head downwind and 
my hands over my mouth hearing the trees 
thrashing each other. I could not see who was 
next me till the flashes came. Then I found 
that I was packed near Saumarez and the eld- 
est Miss Copleigh with my own horse just in 
front of me. I recognized the eldest Miss Cop- 
leigh, because she had a pagri round her hel- 
met, and the younger had not. All the elec- 
tricity in the air had gone into my body and I 
was quivering and tingling from head to foot 
— exactly as a corn shoots and tingles before 
rain. It was a grand storm. The wind seemed 
to be picking up the earth and pitching it to 
leeward in great heaps; and the heat beat up 
from the ground like the heat of the Day of 
Judgment. 

The storm lulled slightly after the first half- 
hour, and I heard a despairing little voice 
close to my ear, saying to itself, quietly and 
softly, as if some lost soul were flying about 


54 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


with the wind: “O my God!” Then the 
younger Miss Copleigh stumbled into my 
arms, saying: ‘‘Where is my horse? Get my 
horse. I want to go home. I want to go 
home. Take me home.” 

I thought that the lightning and the black 
darkness had frightened her; so I said there 
was no danger, but she must wait till the storm 
blew over. She answered: ‘‘It is not that! 
It is not that! I want to go home! O take 
me away from here!” 

I said that she could not go till the light 
came; but I felt her brush past me and go 
away. It was too dark to see where. Then 
the whole sky was split open with one tre- 
mendous flash, as if the end of the world were 
coming, and all the women shrieked. 

Almost directly after this, I felt a man’s 
hand on my shoulder and heard Saumarez bel- 
lowing in my ear. Through the rattling of 
the trees and howling of the wind, I did not 
catch his words at once, but at last I heard him 
say: ‘‘I’ve proposed to the wrong one ! What 
shall I do?” Saumarez had no occasion to 
make this confidence to me. I was never a 
friend of his, noram I now; but I fancy neither 
of us were ourselves just then. He was shak- 
ing as he stood with excitement, and I was 
feeling queer all over with the electricity. I 
could not think of anything to say except: 
‘‘More fool you for proposing in a dust storm.” 
But I did not see how that would improve the 
mistake. 

Then he shouted; ‘‘Where’s Edith — Edith 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


55 


Copieigh?” Edith was the younger sister. I 
answered out of m)^ astonishment: “What do 
you want with her?” Would you believe it, 
for the next two minutes, he and I were shout- 
ing at each other like maniacs — he vowing that 
it was the younger sister he had meant to pro- 
pose to all along, and I telling him till my 
throat was hoarse that he must have made a 
mistake! I can’t account for this except, 
again, by the fact that we were neither of us 
ourselves. Everything seemed to me like a 
bad dream — from the stamping of the horses 
in the darkness to Saumarez telling me the 
story of his loving Edith Copleigh since the 
first. He was still clawing my shoulder and 
begging me to tell him where Edith Copleigh 
was, when another lull came and brought light 
with it, and we saw the dust cloud forming on 
the plain in front of us. So we knew the worst 
was over. The moon was low down, and there 
was just the glimmer of the false dawn that 
comes about an hour before the real one. But 
the light was very faint, and the dun cloud 
roared like a bull. I wondered where Edith 
Copleigh had gone; and as I was wondering I 
saw three things together; First Maud Cop- 
leigh’s face came smiling out of the darkness 
and move toward Saumarez who was standing 
by me. I heard the girl whisper: “George,” 
and slide her arm through the arm that was 
not clawing my shoulder, and I saw that look 
on her face which only comes once or twice in 
a lifetime — when a woman is perfectly happy 
and the air is full of trumpets and gorgeous- 


56 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


colored fire and the earth turns into cloud 
because she loves and is loved. At the same 
time I saw Saumarez’s face as he heard Maud 
Copleigh’s voice, and fifty yards away from 
the clump of orange-trees, I saw a brown hol- 
land habit getting upon a horse. 

It must have been my state of overexcite- 
ment that made me so quick to meddle with 
what did not concern me. Saumarez was 
moving off to the habit; but I pushed him 
back and said: “Stop here and explain. ITl 
fetch her back!” And I ran out to get at my 
own horse. I had a perfectly unnecessary 
notion that everything must be done decently 
and in order, and that Saumarez’s first care 
was to wipe the happy look out of Maud Cop- 
leigh’s face. All the time I was linking up 
the curb-chain I wondered how he would do it. 

I cantered after Edith Copleigh, thinking to 
bring her back slowly on some pretence or 
another. But she galloped away as soon as 
she saw ijie, and I was forced to ride after her 
in earnest. She called back over her shoulder 
— “Go away! I’m going home. Oh, go 
away!” two or three times; but my business 
was to catch her first and argue later. The 
ride just fitted in with the rest of the evil 
dream. The ground was very bad, and now 
and again we rushed through the whirling, 
choking “dust devils” in the skirts of the flying 
storm. There was a burning hot wind blow- 
ing that brought up a stench of stale brick- 
kilns with it; and through the half light and 
through the dust-devils, across that desolate 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


57 


plain, flickered the brown holland habit on the 
gray horse. She headed for the station at first. 
Then she wheeled round and set off for the 
river through beds of burned-down jungle- 
grass, bad even to ride pig over. In cold 
blood I should never have dreamed of going 
over such a country at night, but it seemed 
quite right and natural with the lightning 
crackling over head, and a reek like the smell 
of the Pit in my nostrils. I rode and shouted, 
and she bent forward and lashed her horse, 
and the aftermeth of the duststorm came up 
and caught us both and drove us downwind 
like pieces of paper. 

I don’t know how far we rode ; but the drum- 
ming of the horse hoofs and the roar of the wind 
and the race of the faint blood-red moon through 
the yellow mist seemed to have gone on for 
years and years, and I was literally drenched 
with sweat from my helmet to my gaiters 
when the gray stumbled, recovered himself, 
and pulled up dead lame. My brute was used 
up altogether. Edith Copleigh was in a sad 
state, plastered with dust, her helmet off, and 
crying bitterly. “Why can’t you let me alone?” 
she said. “I only wanted to get away and go 
home. Oh, please let me go!” 

“You have got to come back with me. Miss 
Copleigh. Saumarez has something to say to 
you.” 

It was a foolish way of putting it; but I 
hardly knew Miss Copleigh, and, though I was 
playing Providence at the cost of my horse, I 
could not tell her in as many words what 


58 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Saumarez had told me. I thought he could do 
that better himself. All her pretence about 
being tired and wanting to go home broke 
down, and she rocked herself to and fro in the 
saddle as she sobbed, and the hot wind blew 
her black hair to leeward. I am not going to 
repeat what she said, because she was utterly 
unstrung. 

This, if you please, was the cynical Miss 
Copleigh. Here was I, almost an utter 
stranger to her, trying to tell her that Sau- 
marez loved her and she was to come back to 
hear him say so. I believe I made myself 
understood, for she gathered the gray together 
and made him hobble somehow, and we set off 
for the tomb, while the storm went thundering 
down to Umballa and a few big drops of 
warm rain fell. I found out that she had been 
standing close to Saumarez when he proposed 
to her sister, and had wanted to go home to 
cry in peace, as an English girl should. She 
dabbed her eyes with her pocket-handkerchief 
as we went along, and babbled to me out of 
sheer lightness of heart and hysteria. That 
was perfectly unnatural ; and yet it seemed all 
right at the time and in the place. All the 
world was only the two Copleigh girls, Sau- 
marez and I, ringed in with the lightning and 
the dark: and the guidance of this misguided 
world seemed to lie in my hands. 

When we returned to the tomb in the deep, 
dead stillness that followed the storm, the dawn 
was just breaking and nobody had gone away. 
They were waiting for our return. Saumarez 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


59 


most of all. His face was white and drawn. 
As Miss Copleigh and I limped up, he came 
forward to meet us, and, when he helped her 
down from her saddle he kissed her before all 
the picnic. It was like a scene in a theatre, 
and the likeness was heightened by all the 
dust-white, ghostly-looking men and women 
under the orange trees, clapping their hands — 
as if they were watching a play — at Saumarez’s 
choice. I never knew anything so un-English 
in my life. 

Lastly, Saumarez said we must all go home 
or the station would come out to look for us, 
and would I be good enough to ride home with 
Maud Copleigh? Nothing would give me 
greater pleasure, I said. 

So, we formed up six couples in all, and went 
h)ack two by two ; Saumarez walking at the side 
of Edith Copleigh, who was riding his horse. 

The air was cleared; and little by little, as 
the sun rose, I felt we were all dropping back 
again into ordinary men and women and that 
the “Great Pop Picnic” was a thing altogether 
apart and out of the world — never to happen 
again. It had gone with the dust storm and 
the tingle in the hot air. 

I felt tired and limp, and a good deal 
ashamed of myself as I went in for a bath and 
some sleep. 

There is a woman’s version of this story, but 
it will never be written . . . unless Maud 
Copleigh cares to try. 


60 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


« 


THE RESCUE OF PLUFFLES. 

Thus, for a season, they fought it fair — 

She and his cousin May — 

Tactful, talented, debonnaire, 

Decorous foes were they ; 

But never can battle of man compare 
With merciless feminine fray. 

— Two and One. 

Mrs. Hauksbee was sometimes nice to her 
own sex. Here is a story to prove this; and 
you can believe just as much as ever you 
please. 

Pluffles was a subaltern in the “Unmention- 
ables.” He was callow even for a subaltern. 
He was callow all over — like a canary that had 
not finished fledging itself. The worst of 
it was he had three times as much money as 
was good for him, Pluffles’ papa being a rich 
man and Pluffles being the only son. Pluffles’ 
mamma adored him. She was only a little less 
callow than Pluffles and she believed every- 
thing he said. 

Pluffles’ weakness was not believing what 
people said. He preferred what he called 
“trusting to his own judgment.” He had as 
much judgment as he had seat or hands; and 
this preference tumbled him into trouble once 
or twice. But the biggest trouble Pluffles 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


61 


ever manufactured came about at Silma — some 
years ago, when he was twenty-four. 

He began by trusting to his own judgment, 
as usual, and the result was that, after a time, 
he was bound hand and foot to Mrs. Reiver's 
'rickshaw wheels. 

There was nothing good about Mrs. Reiver, 
unless it was her dress. She was bad from 
her hair — which started life on a Brittany girl’s 
head — to her boot-heels which were two and 
three-eight inches high. She was not honestly 
mischievous like Mrs. Hauksbee; she was 
wicked in a business-like way. 

There was never any scandal — she had not 
generous impulses enough for that. She was 
the exception which proved the rule that Anglo- 
Indian ladies are in every way as nice as their 
sisters at home. She spent her life in prov- 
ing that rule. 

Mrs. Hauksbee and she hated each other 
fervently. They heard far too much to clash ; 
but the things they said of each other were 
startling — not to say original. Mrs. Hauks- 
bee was honest — honest as her own front-teeth 
— and, but for her love of mischief, would have 
been a woman’s woman. There was no 
honesty about Mrs. Reiver, nothing but sel- 
fishness. And at the beginning of the season, 
poor little Plufiies fell a prey to her. She laid 
herself out to that end, and who was Pluffies 
to resist? He went on trusting to his judg- 
ment, and he got judged. 

I have seen Hayes argue with a tough 
Lorse — I have seen a tonga- driver coerce a 


62 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Stubborn pony — I have seen a riotous setter 
broken to gun by a hard-keeper — but the 
breaking-in of Pluffles of the “Unmention- 
ables” was beyond all these. He learned to 
fetch and carry like a dog, and to wait like 
one too for a word from Mrs. Reiver. He 
learned to keep appointments which Mrs. 
Reiver had no intention of keeping. He 
learned to take thankfully dances which Mrs. 
Reiver had no intention of giving him. He 
learned to shiver for an hour and a quarter on 
the windward side of Elysium while Mrs. 
Reiver was making up her mind to come for a 
ride. He learned to hunt for a ’rickshaw, in 
a light dress suit under pelting rain, and to 
walk by the side of that ’rickshaw when he 
had found it. He learned what it was to be 
spoken to like a coolie and ordered about like 
a cook. He learned all this and many other 
things besides. And he paid for his schooling. 

Perhaps, in some hazy way, he fancied that 
it was fine and impressive, that it gave him a 
status among men, and was altogether the 
thing to do. It was nobody’s business to 
warn Pluffles that he was unwise. The pace 
that season was too good to inquire, and med- 
dling with another man’s folly is always 
thankless work. Pluffles’ colonel should have 
ordered him back to his regiment when he 
heard how things were going. But Pluffles 
had got himself engaged to a girl in England 
the last time he went home ; and if there Was 
one thing more than another which the 
colonel detested, it was a married subaltern. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


63 


He chuckled when he heard of the education 
of Pluffles, and said it was “good training for 
the boy.” But it was not good training in the 
least. It led him into spending money beyond 
his means, which were good: above that the 
education spoiled an average boy and made it 
a tenth-rate man of an objectionable kind. 
He wandered into a bad set, and his little bill 
at Hamilton’s was a thing to wonder at. 

Then Mrs. Hauksbee rose to the occasion. 
She pla3^ed her game alone, knowing what 
people would say of her; and she played it for 
the sake of a girl she had never seen. Pluffles’ 
fiancee was to come out, under chaperonage of 
an aunt, in October, to be married to 
Pluffles. 

At the beginning of August, Mrs. Hauks- 
bee discovered that it was time to interfere. 
A man who rides much knows exactly what 
a horse is going to do next before he does it. 
In the same way, a woman of Mrs. Hauks- 
bee ’s experience knows accurately how a boy 
will behave under certain circumstances — 
notably when he is infatuated with one of 
Mrs. Reiver’s stamp. She said that, sooner 
or late, little Pluffles would break off that en- 
gagement for nothing at all — simply to gratify 
Mrs. Reiver, who in return would keep him at 
her feet and in her service just so long as she 
found it worth her while. She said she knew 
the signs of these things. If she did not, no 
one else could. 

Then she went forth to capture Pluffles 
under the guns of the enemy; just as Mrs. 


64 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Cusack- Bremmil carried away Bremmil under 
Mrs. Hauksbee’s eyes. 

This particular eng-agement lasted seven 
weeks — we called it the Seven Weeks’ War — 
and was fought out inch by inch on both sides. 
A detailed account would fill a book, and 
would be incomplete then. Any one who 
knows about these things can fit in the details 
for himself. It was a superb fight — there will 
never be another like it as long as Jakko 
stands — and Pluffles was the prize of victory. 
People said shameful things about Mrs. 
Hauksbee. They did not know what she was 
playing for. Mrs. Reiver fought, partly be- 
cause Pluffles was useful to her, but mainly 
because she hated Mrs. Hauksbee, and the 
matter was a trial of strength between them. 
No one knows what Pluffles thought. He had 
not many ideas at the best of times, and the 
few he possessed made him conceited. Mrs. 
Hauksbee said: “The boy must be caught; 
and the only way of catching him is by treat- 
ing him well. ’ ’ 

So she treated him .as a man of the world 
and of experience as long as the issue was 
doubtful. Little by little Pluffles fell away 
from his old allegiance and came over to the 
enemy, by whom he was made much of. He 
was never sent on outpost duty after ’rickshaws 
any more, nor was he given dances which 
never came off, nor were the drains on his 
purse continued. Mrs. Hauksbee held him on 
the snaffle; and, after his treatment at Mrs. 
Reiver’s hands, he appreciated the change. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


65 


Mrs. Reiver had broken him of talking 
about himself, and made him talk about her 
own merits. Mrs. Hauksbee acted otherwise, 
and won his confidence, till he mentioned his 
engagement to the girl at home, speaking of 
it in a high and mighty way as a “piece of 
boyish folly.” This was when he was taking 
tea with her one afternoon, and discoursing in 
what he considered a gay and fascinating 
style. Mrs. Hauksbee had seen an earlier 
generation of his stamp bud and blossom, and 
decay into fat captains and tubby majors. 

At a moderate estimate there were about 
three and twenty sides to that lady’s charac- 
ter. Some men say more. She began to talk 
to Plufiies after the manner of a mother, and 
as if there had been three hundred years, in- 
stead of fifteen, between them. She spoke 
with a sort of throaty quaver in her voice 
which had a soothing effect, though what she 
said was anything but soothing. She pointed 
out the exceeding folly, not to say meanness, 
of Pluffles’ conduct, and the smallness of his 
views. Then he stammered something about 
“trusting to his own judgment as a man of the 
world;” and this paved the way for what she 
wanted to say next. It would have withered 
up Plufiies had it come from any other woman ; 
but in the soft cooing style in which Mrs. 
Hauksbee put it, it only made him feel limp 
and repentant — as if he had been in some 
superior kind of church. Little by little, very 
softly and pleasantly, she began taking the 
conceit out of Plufiies, as you take the ribs 

5 


66 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


out of an umbrella before re-covering it. She 
told him what she thought of him and his 
judgment and his knowledge of the world ; and 
how his performances had made him ridicu- 
lous to other people ; and how it was his in- 
tention to make love to herself if she gave 
him the chance. Then she said that marriage 
would be the making of him; and drew a 
pretty little picture — all rose and opal — of the 
Mrs. Pluffles of the future going through life 
relying on the “judgment” and “knowledge of 
the world” of a husband who had nothing to re- 
proach himself with. How she reconciled 
these two statements she alone knew. But 
they did not strike Pluffles as conflicting. 

Hers was a perfect little homily — much bet- 
ter than any clergyman could have given — and 
it ended with touching allusions to Pluffles* 
mamma and papa, and the vrisdom of taking 
his bride home. 

Then she sent Pluffles out for a walk, to 
think over what she had said. Pluffles left, 
blowing his nose very hard and holding him- 
self very straight. Mrs. Hauksbee laughed. 
What Pluffles had intended to do in the matter 
of the engagement only Mrs. Reiver knew, and 
she kept her own counsel to her death. She 
would have liked it spoiled as a compliment, 
I fancy. 

Pluffles enjoyed many talks with Mrs. 
Hauksbee during the next few days. They 
were all to the same end, and they helped 
Pluffles in the path of virtue. 

Mrs. Hauksbee wanted to keep him under 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


67 


her wing to the last. Therefore she discoun- 
tenanced his going down to Bombay to get 
married. “Goodness only knows what might 
happen by the way!” she said. “Pluffles is 
cursed with the curse of Reuben, and India is 
no fit place for him.” 

In the end, the fiancee arrived with her aunt ; 
and Pluffies, having reduced his affairs to some 
sort of order — here again Mrs. Hauksbee 
helped him — was married. 

Mrs. Hauksbee gave a sigh of relief when 
both the “I wills” had been said, and went 
her way. 

Pluffies took her advice about going home. 
He left the service, and is now raising 
speckled cattle inside green painted fences 
somewhere at home. I believe he does this 
very judiciously. He would have come to 
extreme grief out here. 

For these reasons if any one says anything 
more than usually nasty about Mrs. Hauksbee, 
tell him the story of the Rescue of Pluffies. 


68 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


M 


\ CUPID’S ARROWS. 

Pit where the buffalo cooled his hide, 

By the hot sun emptied, and blistered and dried ; 
Log in the r^f^-grass, hidden and alone ; 

where the earth-rat’s mounds are strown: 
Cave in the bank where the sly stream steals ; 

Aloe that stabs at the belly and heels, 

Jump if you dare on a steed untried — 

Safer it is to go wide — go wide ! 

Hark, from in front where the best men ride : — 
“Pull to the off, boys! Wide! Go wide!’’ 

— The Peora Hunt. 

Once upon a time there lived at Simla a very 
pretty girl, the daughter of a poor but honest 
district and sessions judge. She was a good 
girl, but could not help knowing her power and 
using it. Her mamma was very anxious about 
her daughter’s future, as all good mammas 
should be. 

When a man is a commissioner and a bachelor 
and has the right of wearing open-work jam- 
tart jewels in gold and enamel on his clothes, 
and of going through a door before every one 
except a member of council, a lieutenant-gov- 
ernor, or a viceroy, he is worth marrying. At 
least, that .is what ladies say. There was a 
commissioner in Simla in those days, who was, 
and wore, and did, all I have said. He was a 
plain man — ap. ugly man — the ugliest man in 
Asia, with two exceptions. His was a face to 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


69 


dream about and try to carve on a pipe»head 
afterward. His name was Saggott — Barr-Sag- 
gott — Anthony Barr-Saggott and six letters 
to follow. Departmentally, he was one of the 
best men the government of India owned. 
Socially, he was like a blandishing gorilla. 

When he turned his attention to Miss Beigh- 
ton, I believe that Mrs. Beighton wept with 
delight at the reward Providence had sent her 
in her old age. 

Mr. Beighton held his tongue. He was any 
easy-going man. 

Now a commissioner is very rich. His pay 
is beyond the dreams of avarice — is so enor- 
mous that he can afford to save and scrape in 
a way that would almost discredit a member 
of council. Most commissioners are mean; 
but Barr-Saggott was an exception. He en- 
tertained royally ; he horsed himself well ; he 
gave dances; he was a power in the land; and 
he behaved as such. 

Consider that everything I am writing of 
took place in an almost prehistoric era in the 
history of British India. Some folk may re- 
member the years before lawn-tennis was born 
when we all played croquet. There were 
seasons before that, if you will believe me, 
when even croquet had not been invented, and 
archery — which was revived in England in 1844 
— was as great a pest as lawn-tennis is now. 
People talked learnedly about “holding” and 
“loosing,” “steles,” *’ reflexed bows,” fifty- 
six “pound bows," “backed” or “self-yew 
bows,” as we talk about “rallies,” “volleys,” 


70 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


“smashes,” “returns,” and “sixteen-ounce 
rackets. ” 

Miss Beighton shot divinely over ladies’ dis- 
tance — sixty yards, that is —and was acknowl- 
edged the best lady archer in Simla. Men 
called her “Diana of Tara-Devi. ” 

Barr-Saggott paid her great attention; and, 
as I have said, the heart of her mother was 
uplifted in consequence. Kitty Beighton took 
matters more calmly. It was pleasant to be 
singled out by a commissioner with letters 
after his name, and to fill the hearts of other 
girls with bad feelings. But there was no de- 
nying the fact that Barr-Saggott was phenom- 
enally ugly; and all his attempts to adorn him- 
self only made him more grotesque. He was 
not christened “The Langur "' — which means 
gray ape — for nothing. It was pleasant, Kitty 
thought, to have him at her feet, but it was 
better to escape from him and ride with the 
graceless Cubbon — the man in a dragoon regi- 
ment at Umballa^the boy with a handsome 
face, and no prospects. Kitty like Cubbon 
more than a little. He never pretended for 
a moment that he was anything less than head 
over heels in love with her; for he was an 
honest boy. So Kitty fled, now and again, 
from the stately wooings of Barr-Saggott to 
the company of young Cubbon, and was 
scolded by her mamma in consequence. “But, 
mother,” she said, “Mr. Saggott is such — such 
a — is so fearfully ugly, you know!” 

■‘My dear,” said Mrs. Beighton piously, 
•‘we cannot be other than an all-ruling Provi- 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


71 


■dence has made us. Besides, you will take 
precedence of your own mother, you know! 
Think of that and be reasonable.” 

Then Kitty put up her little chin and said 
irreverent things about precedence, and com- 
missioners, and matrimony. Mr. Beighton 
rubbed the top of his head, for he was an easy- 
going man. 

Late in the season, when he judged that 
the time was ripe, Barr-Saggott developed a 
plan which did great credit to his administra- 
tive powers. He arranged an archery tourn- 
ament for ladies with a most sumptuous dia- 
mond-studded bracelet as prize. He drew up 
his terms skillfully, and every one saw that 
the bracelet was a gift to Miss Beighton, the 
acceptance carrying with it the hand and the 
heart of Commissioner Barr-Saggott. The 
terms were a St. Leonard’s Round — thirty-six 
shots at sixty yards — under the rules of the 
Simla Toxophilite Society. 

All Simla was invited. There were beauti- 
fully arranged tea-tables under the deodars at 
Annandale, where the grand stand is now; 
and, alone in its glory, winking in the sun, sat 
the diamond bracelet in a blue velvet case. 
Miss Beighton was anxious — almost too anxious 
— to compete. On the appointed afternoon, 
all Simla rode down to Annandale to witness 
the Judgment of Paris turned upside down. 
Kitty rode with young Cubbon, and it was easy 
to see that the boy was troubled in his mind. 
He must be held innocent of everything that 
followed. Kitty was pale and nervous, and 


72 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


looked long at the bracelet. Barr-Saggott was 
gorgeously dressed, even more nervous than 
Kitty, and more hideous than ever. 

Mrs. Beighton smiled condescendingly, as 
befitted the mother of a potential commission- 
eress, and the shooting began; all the world 
standing a semicircle as the ladies came out 
one after the other. 

Nothing is so tedious as an archery competi- 
tion. They shot, and they shot, and they kept 
on shooting, till the sun left the valley, and 
little breezes got up in the deodars, and peo- 
ple waited for Miss Beighton to shoot and win. 
Cubbon was at one horn of the semicircle 
round the shooters, and Barr-Saggott at the 
other. Miss Beighton was last on the list. 
The scoring had been weak and the bracelet, 
plus Commissioner Barr-Saggott, was hers to 
a certainty. 

The Commissioner strung her bow with his 
own sacred hands. She stepped forward, 
looked at the bracelet, and her first arrow 
went true to a hair — full into the heart of the 
“gold,” counting nine points. 

Young Cubbon on the left turned white, and 
his devil prompted Barr-Saggott to smile. 
Now horses used to shy when Barr-Saggott 
smiled. Kitty saw that smile. She looked 
to her left-front, gave an almost imperceptible 
nod to Cubbon, and went on shooting. 

I wish I could describe the scene that fol- 
lowed. It was out of the ordinary and most 
improper. Miss Kitty fitted her arrows with 
immense deliberation, so that every one 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 75 

might see what she was doing. She was a 
perfect shot; and her forty-six pound bow 
suited her to a nicety. She pinned the wooden 
legs of the target with great care four succes- 
ive times. She pinned the wooden top of the 
target once, and all the ladies looked at each 
other. Then she began some fancy shooting^ 
at the white, which, if you hit it, counts ex- 
actly one point. She put five arrows into the 
white. It was wonderful archery; but, seeing 
that her business was to make “golds” and 
win the bracelet, Barr-Saggott turned a deli- 
cate green like young water-grass. Next, she 
shot over the target twice, then wide to the 
left twice — always with the same deliberation 
— while a chilly hush fell over the company, 
and Mrs. Beighton took out her handkerchief. 
Then Kitty shot at the ground in front of the 
target, and split several arrows. Then she 
made a red — or seven points — just to show 
what she could do if she liked, and she fin- 
ished up her amazing performance with some 
more fancy shooting at the target supports. 
Here is her score as it was pricked off : 

Gold.Red.Blue.Black.White.Total Hits. Total Score. 
Miss Beighton 1 1 0 0 5 7 21 

Barr-Saggott looked as if the last few arrow- 
heads had been driven into his legs instead of 
the target’s, and the deep stillness was broken 
by a little snubby, mottled, half-grown girl 
saying in a shrill voice of triumph — “Then 
I’ve won!” 

Mrs. Beighton did her best to bear up; but 


74 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


she wept in the presence of the people. No 
training could help her through such a disap- 
pointment. Kitty unstrung her bow with a 
vicious jerk, and went back to her place, while 
Barr-Saggott was trying to pretend that he 
enjoyed snapping the bracelet on the snubby 
girl’s raw, red wrist. It was an awkward 
scene — most awkward. Every one tried to 
depart in a body and leave Kitty to the mercy 
of her mamma. 

But Cubbon took her . away instead, and — 
the rest isn’t worth printing. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


75 


THE THREE MUSKETEERS. 

An’ when the war began, we chased the bold Afghan, 
An’ we made the bloomin’ Ghazi for to flee, boys O ! 
An’ we marched into Kabul, and we tuk the Balar ’Issar 
An’ we taught ’em to respec’ the British Soldier. 

— Barrack Room Ballad. 

Mulvaney, Ortheris and Learoyd are pri- 
vates in B Company of a line regiment, and 
personal friends of mine. Collectively, I 
think, but am not certain, they are the worst 
men in the regiment so far as genial black- 
guardism goes. 

They told me this story, the other day, in 
the Umballa refreshment room while we were 
waiting for an up-train. I supplied the beer. 
The tale was cheap at a gallon and a half. 

Of course, 5^11 know Lord Benira Trig. He 
is a duke, or an earl, or something unofficial; 
also a peer; also a globe-trotter. On all three 
counts, as Ortheris says, “ ’e didn’t deserve no 
consideration.” He was out here for three 
months collecting materials for a book on “Our 
Eastern Impedimenta,” and quartering himself 
upon everybody, like a Cossack in evening 
dress. 

His particular vice — because he was a Radi- 
cal, I suppose — was having garrisons turned 
out for his inspection. He would then dine 
with the officer commanding, and insult him. 


76 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


across the mess table, about the appearance of 
the troops. That was Benira’s way. 

He turned out troops once too often. He 
came to Helanthami Cantonment on a Tues- 
day. He wished to go shopping in the bazaars 
on Wednesday, and he “desired” the troops to 
be turned out on a Thursday. On — a — Thurs- 
day! The officer commanding could not well 
refuse ; for Benira was a lord. There was an 
indignation meeting of subalterns in the mess 
room, to call the colonel pet names. 

“But the rale dimonstrashin, ” said Mul- 
vaney, “was in B Comp’ny barrick; we there 
headin’ it. ” 

Mulvaney climbed on to the refreshment- 
bar, settled himself comfortably by the beer, 
and went on: “Whin the row was ut’s foinest 
an’ B Comp’ny was fur goin’ out to murther 
this man Thrigg on the p’rade-groun’, Learoyd 
Jbere takes up his helmut an’ sez — fwhat was ut 
ye said?” 

“Ah said, ” said Learoyd, “gie us t ’brass. 
Tak oop a subscripshun, lads, for to put off t’ 
p’rade, an’ if t’ p’rade’s not put off, ah’ll gie 
t’ brass back agean. Thot’s wot ah said. All 
B Comp’ny knawed me. Ah took oop a big 
subscripshun — fower rupees eight annas ’twas 
— an’ ah went oot to turn t’ job over. Mul- 
vaney an’ Orth’ris coom with me. ” 

“We three raises the divil in couples gin’- 
rally.” explained Mulvaney. 

Here Ortheris interrupted “ ’Ave you read 
the papers?” said he. 

“Sometimes,” I said. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


77 


'‘We ’ad read the papers, an’ we put hup a 
faked decoity, a — a sedukshun. ” 

“Abdukshun, ye cockney,” said Mulvaney. 
‘‘Abdukshun or sedukshun — no great odds. 
Any’ow, we arranged to taik an’ put Misther 
Benhira out o’ the way till Thursday was hover, 
or ’e too busy to rux ’isself about p’raids. Hi 
was the man wot said: ‘We’ll make a few 
rupees off o’ the business.’ ” 

‘‘We hild a council av war,” continued Mul- 
vaney, ‘‘walkin’ roun’ by the artill’ry lines. 
I was prisidint, Learoyd was minister av 

finance, an’ little Orth’ris here was ” 

‘‘A bloomin’ Bismarck! Hi made the ’ole 
show pay. ” 

‘ ‘ This interferin’ bit ave a Benira man, ’ ’ said 
Mulvaney, ‘‘did the thrick for us himself; for, 
on me sowl, we hadn’t a notion av what was 
to come afthre the next minut. He was shop- 
pin in the bazar on fut. ’Twas dhrawin’ dusk 
thin, an’ we stud watchin’ the little man hop- 
pin’ in an’ out ave the shops, thryin, to injuce 
the naygurs to mallum his bat. Prisintly he 
sthrols up, his arrums full av thruck, an’ he 
sez in a consiquinshal way, shticking out his 
little belly: ‘Me good men,’ sez he, ‘have ye 
seen the kernel’s b’roosh?’ ‘B’roosh?’ says 
Learoyd. ‘There’s no b’roosh here — nobbut 
2,hekka.' ‘Fwhat’s that?’ sez Thrigg. Learoyd 
shows him wan down the sthreet, an’ he sez : 
‘How thruly Orientil! I will ride on a hekka. ’ 
I saw thin that our regimintal saint was for 
givin’ Thrigg over to us neck an’ brisket. I 
purshued a hekka^ an’ I sez to the dhriver- 


78 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


divil, I sez — ‘Ye black limb there’s a Sahib 
cornin’ for this hekka. He wants to go jildi to 
the Padsahi Jhil’ — ’twas about tu moiles away 
— to shoot snipe — chirria. ‘You Jeha7i- 

num ke marfik, mallum? ’Tis no manner av 
faider bukktn to the Sahib,' bekaze he doesn’t 
samjao your bat. Av he bolos anything, just 
you choop and chel. Dekker? Go arsty for the 
first arder-mW^ from cantonmints. Then chel, 
Shaitan ke marfik, an’ the chooper you choops an’ 
the jtlder you chels the better kooshy will that 
Sahib be; an’ here’s a rupee for ye.” 

“The hekka-vcidiXi knew there was somethin’ 
out ave the common in the air. He grinned 
and sez: 'Bote achee! I goin’ damn fast. ’ I 
prayed that the kernel’s b’roosh wudn’t arrive 
till me darlin’ Benira by the grace av God was 
undher weigh. The little man puts his thruck 
into the hekka an’ scuttles in like a fat guinea- 
pig; niver offerin’ us the price of a dhrink for 
our services in helpin’ him home. ‘He’s off to 
the Padsahi sez I to the others.” 

Ortheris took up the tale : 

‘‘Jist then, little Buldoo kim up, ’oo was the 
son of one of the artillery saises — ’e would ’av 
made a ’evinly newspaper-boy in London, 
bein’ sharp and fly to all manner o’ games. 
’E ’ad bin watchin’ us puttin’ Mister Benhira 
into ’s temporary baroush, an’ ’e sez: ‘What 
’ave you been a doin’ of, Sahibs?' sez he. 
‘Learoyd ’e caught ’im by the ear an’ ’e 
sez ” 

‘‘Ah says,” went on Learoyd: “ ‘Young 
mon, that mon’s gooin’ to have’t goons out o’ 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 7& 

Thursday — kul — an’ thot’s more work for you, 
young mon. Now, sitha, tak a tat an’ a lookri, 
an’ ride tha domdest to t’ Padsahi Jhil. Cotch 
thot there hekka^ and tell t’ dhriver iv your 
lingo thot you’ve coom to tak’ his place. T’ 
Sahib doesn’t speak t’ bat, an’ he’s a little mon. 
Drive t’ hekka into t’ Padsahi Jhil into t’watter. 
Leave t’ Sahib theer an’ roon hoam; an’ here 
’a a ruppee for tha.” 

Then Mulvaney and Ortheris spoke together 
in alternate fragments; Mulvaney leading (you 
must pick out the two speakers as best you 
can): ‘‘He was a knowin’ little divil was 
Bhuldoo — ’e sez bote achee an’ cuts — wid a wink 
in his oi — but Hi sez there’s money to be 
made — an’ I want to see the end av the cam- 
paign — so Hi says we’ll double hout to the 
Padsahi Jhil — and save the little man from 
bein’ dacoited by the murtherin* Bhuldoo — an’ 
turn hup like reskoors in a Ryle Victoria 
Theayter melodrama — so we doubled for the 
jhil, an’ prisintly there was the divil of a hur- 
roosh behind us an’ three bhoys on grasscuts’ 
tats come by, pounding along for the dear life 
— s’elp me Bob, hif Bhuldoo ’adn’t raised a 
regular harmy of decoits — to do the job in 
shtile. An’ we ran, an’ they ran, shplittin’ 
with laughin’, till we gets near ih.ejhil — and 
’ears sounds of distress floatin’ molloncally on 
the heavenin’ hair. ” (Ortheris was growing 
poetical under the influence of the beer. The 
duet recommenced; Mulvaney leading again.) 

‘‘Thin we heard Bhuldoo, the dacoit, shoutin’ 
to the hekka man, an’ wan of the young divils 


80 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


brougfht his lakri down on the top ave the 
hekka-QowQT, an’ Benira Thrigg inside howled 
‘Murther an’ death.’ Bhuldoo takes the reins 
and dhrives like mad for the jhil, havin’ dish- 
persed the ^^^.^^-dhriver — ’oo cum up to us an’ 
’e sez, sez ’e: ‘That Sahib's nigh gazi>bry with 
flunk! Wot devil’s work ’av you let me into?’ 
‘Hall right,’ sez we, ‘you puckrow that there 
pony an’ come along. This Sahibs been de- 
coited, an’ were going to resky ’im !’ Says the 
driver: ‘Deceits! Wot deceits? That’s 

Bhuldoo th budmash’ — ‘Bhuldoo be shot!’ sez 
we. ‘ ’Tis a woild dissolute Pathan frum the 
hills. There’s about eight av ’im coercin’ the 
Sahib. You remimber that an’ youTl get 
another rupee!’ Then we heard the whop- 
whop~whop av the hekka turnin’ over, an’ a 
splash av watter an’ the voice av Benira Thrigg 
callin’ upon God to forgive his sins — an’ 
Bhuldoo an’ ’is friends squotterin’ in the water 
like boys in the serpentine.” Here the 
Three Musketeers retired simultaneously into 
the beer. 

‘‘Well? What came next?” said I. 

‘‘Fwhat nex’?” answered Mulvaney, wiping 
his mouth. ‘‘Wud you let three bould sodger- 
bhoys lave the ornamint av the House av Lords 
to be dhrowned an’ dacoited in 3.jhil? We 
formed line av quarther-column an’ we de- 
sinded upon the inimy. For the better part av 
tin minutes you could not hear yerself spake. 
The tattoo was screamin’ in chune wid Benira 
Thrigg an’ Bhuldoo’s army, an’ the shticks 
was whistlin’ roun’ the hekka, an’ Orth’ris was 



"Come three envelicks, one for each of us.” — Page 82. 

Plain Tales from the Hills. 


» 



PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


81 


"beatin’ the hekka-QOVQV wid his fists, an' 
Learoyd yellin’: “Look out for their knives! 
an’ me cuttin’ into the dark, right an’ lef, 
dishpersin’ army corps av Pathans. Holy 
Mother av Moses! ’twas more disp’rit than 
Ahmid Kheyl wid Maiwund thrown in. Afther 
a while Bhuldoo an’ his bhoys flees. Have ye 
iver seen a rale live lord thryin’ to hide his 
nobility undher a fut an’ a half av brown 
wather? ’Tis the livin’ image av a bhisti's 
mussick! wid the shivers. It tuk toime to per- 
shuade me frind Benira he was not disimbow- 
illed: an’ more toime to get out the hekka. 
The dhriver come up afther the battle, 
swearin’ he tuk a hand in repulsin’ the inimy. 
Benira was sick wid the fear. We escorted him 
hack, very slow, to cantonmints, for that an’ 
the chill to soak into him. It suk! Glory be 
to the rigimintil saint, but it suk to the mar- 
row av Lord Benira Thrigg!’’ 

Here Ortheris slowly, with immense pride : 
“ ’E sex: ‘You har my noble preservers,’ sez 
’e. ‘You har a honor to the British harmy, ’ 
sez ’e. With that ’e describes the hawful 
band of decoits wot set on ’im. There was 
about forty of ’em an’ ’e was hoverpowered by 
numbers, so ’e was; but ’e never lost ’is 
presence of mind, so ’e didn’t. ‘ ’E guv the 
hekka-driver five rupees for ’is noble hassis- 
tance, an’ ’e said ’e would see to us after ’e 
had spoken to the kernul. For we was a honor 
to the regiment, w’e was.’’ 

“An’ we three,’’ said Mulvaney, with a 
seraphic smile, “have dhrawn the par-ti-cu-lar 
6 


82 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


attinshin av Bobs Bahadur more than wanst. 
But he’s a rale good little man is Bobs. Go> 
on, Orth’ris, me son.” 

“Then we leaves ’im at the kernul’s ’ouse, 
werry sick, an’ we cuts over to B Comp’ny 
barrick an’ we sez we ’ave saved Benira from 
a bloody doom, an’ the chances was agin there 
bein’ p’raid on Thursday. About ten minutes 
later come three envelicks, one for each of us. 
S’elp me Bob, if the old bloke ’adn’t guv us a 
fiver apiece — sixty-four dibs in the bazar! On 
Thursday ’e was in ’orspital recoverin’ from 
’s sanguinary encounter with a gang of 
Pathans, an’ B Comp’ny was drinkin’ ’em- 
selves inter clink by squads. So there never 
was no Thursday p’raid. But the kernul, 
when ’e heard of our galliant conduct, ’e sez: 
’Hi know there’s been some devilry some- 
where,’ sez ’e, ‘but hi can’t bring it ’ome to 
you three. ’ ” 

“An’ my privit imprisshin is,’’ said Mul- 
vaney, getting off the bar and turning his 
glass upside down, “that, av they had known 
they wudn’t have brought ut home. ’Tis flyin’ 
in the face, firstly av nature, second, av the 
rigl’ations, an’ third, the will av Terence Mul- 
vaney, to hold p’rades av Thursdays.’’ 

“Good, ma son!’’ said Learoyd; “but young 
mon, what’s t’ note-book for?’’ “Let be,” 
said Mulvaney; “this time next month we’re 
in the Sherapis. ’Tis immortial fame the 
gentleman’s goin’ to give us. But kape it 
dhark till we’re out av the range av me little 
frind Bobs Bahadur.” And I have obeyed 
Mulvaney’s order. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


83 


HIS CHANCE IN LIFE. 

Then a pile of heads be laid — 

Thirty thousand heaped on high — 

All to please the Kafir maid, 

Where the Oxus ripples by, 

Grimly spake Atulla Khan, — 

“Love hath made this thing a Man.” 

Oatta’s Story. 

If you go straight away from levees and 
Government House lists, past trades’ balls — 
far beyond everything and everybody you ever 
knew in your respectable life — you cross, in 
time, the border line where the last drop of 
white blood ends and the full tide of black sets 
in. It would be easier to talk to a new-made 
duchess on the spur of the moment than to 
the borderline folk without violating some of 
their conventions or hurting their feelings. 
The black and the white mix very quaintly in 
their ways. Sometimes the white shows in 
spurts of fierce, childish pride — which is pride 
of race run crooked — and sometimes the black 
in still fiercer abasement and humility, half- 
heathenish customs and strange, unaccountable 
impulses to crime. One of these days, this 
people — understand they are far lower than 
the class whence Derozio, the man who imita- 
ted Byron, sprung — will turn out a writer or a 
poet; and then we shall know how they live 


84 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


and what they feel. In the meantime, any 
stories about them cannot be absolutely cor- 
rect in fact or inference. 

Miss Vezzis came from across the borderline 
to look after some children who belonged to a 
lady until a regularly ordained nurse could 
come out. The lady said Miss Vezzis was a 
bad, dirty nurse and inattentive. It never 
struck her that Miss Vezzis had her own life 
to lead and her own affairs to worry over, 
and that these affairs were the most important 
things in the world to Miss Vezzis. Very few 
mistresses admit this sort of reasoning. Miss 
Vezzis was as black as a boot, and to our stand- 
ard of taste, hideously ugly. She wore cotton- 
print gowns and bulged shoes; and when she 
lost her temper with the children, she abused 
them in the language of the borderline — which 
is part English, part Portuguese, and part 
native. She was not attractive; but she had 
her pride, and she preferred being called 
“Miss Vezzis. ” 

Every Sunday she dressed herself wonder- 
fully and went to see her mamma, who lived, 
for the most part, on an old cane chair in a 
greasy tussur-?\\k dressing-gown and a big 
rabbit-warren of a house full of Vezzises, 
Pereiras, Ribieras, Lisboas and Gonsalveses, 
and a floating population of loafers ; besides 
fragments of the day’s bazar, garlic, stale in- 
cense, clothes thrown on the floor, petticoats 
hung on strings for screens, old bottles, pew- 
ter crucifixes, dried immortelles, pariah pup- 
pies, plaster images of the Virgin, and hats 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


85 


without crowns. Miss Vezzis drew twenty 
rupees a month for acting as nurse, and she 
squabbled weekly with her mamma as to the 
percentage to be given toward housekeeping. 
When the quarrel was over, Michele D’Cruze 
used to shamble across the low mud wall of 
the compound and make love to Miss Vezzis 
after the fashion of the borderline, which is 
hedged about with much ceremony. Michele 
was a poor, sickly weed and very black ; but 
he had his pride. He would not be seen 
smoking a huqa for anything; and he looked 
down on natives as only a man with seven- 
eighths native blood in his veins can. The 
Vezzis family had their pride, too. They 
traced their descent from a mythical plate- 
layer who had worked on the Sone Bridge 
when railways were new in India, and they 
valued their English origin. Michele was a 
telegraph signaler on Rs. 35 a month. The 
fact that he was in government employ made 
Mrs. Vezzis lenient to the shortcomings of his 
ancestors. 

There was a compromising legend — Dom 
Anna the tailor brought it from Poonani — that 
a black Jew of Cochin had once married into 
the D’Cruze family; while it was an open 
secret that an uncle of Mrs. D’Cruze was at 
that very time doing menial work, connected 
with cooking for a club in Southern India! 
He sent Mrs. D’Cruze seven rupees eight annas 
a month; but she felt the disgrace to the 
family very keenly all the same. 

However, in the course of a few Sundays^ 


86 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Mrs. Vezzis brought herself to overlook these 
blemishes and gave her consent to the mar- 
riage of her daughter with Michele, on condi- 
tion that Michele should have at least fifty 
rupees a month to start married life upon. 
This wonderful prudence must have been a 
lingering touch of the mythical plate-layer’s 
Yorkshire blood; for across the borderline 
people take a pride in marrying when they 
please —not when they can. 

Having regard to his departmental pros- 
pects, Miss Vezzis might as well have asked 
Michele to go away and come back with the 
moon in his pocket. But Michele was deeply 
in love with Miss Vezzis, and that helped him 
to endure. He accompanied Miss Vezzis to 
mass one Sunday, and after mass, walking 
home through the hot, stale dust with her hand 
in his, he swore by several saints whose names 
would not interest you never to forget Miss 
Vezzis; and she swore by her honor and the 
saints — the oath runs rather curiously: "'‘In 
nomine Sanctissimce — ” (whatever the name of 
the she saint is) and so forth, ending with a 
kiss on the forehead, a kiss on the left cheek, 
and a kiss on the mouth — never to forget 
Michele. Next week Michele was transferred, 
and Miss Vezzis dropped tears upon the win- 
dow sash of the “Intermediate” compartment 
as he left the station. 

If you look at the telegraph map of India 
you will see a long line skirting the coast from 
Backergunge to Madras. Michele was ordered 
to Tibasu, a little sub-office one-third down 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


87 


this line, to send messages on from Berhampur 
to Chicacola, and to think of Miss Vezzis and 
his chances of getting fifty rupees a month out 
of office hours. He had the noise of the Bay 
of Bengal and a Bengali Babu for company; 
nothing more. He sent foolish letters, with 
crosses tucked inside the flaps of the envelopes, 
to Miss V ezzis. 

When he had been at Tibasu for nearly three 
weeks his chance came. 

Never forget that unless the outward and 
visible signs of our authority are always before 
a native he is as incapable as a child of under- 
standing what authority means, or where is the 
danger of disobeying it. Tibasu was a forgot- 
ten little place with a few Orissa Mahomme- 
dans in it. These, hearing nothing of the col- 
sahib for some time and heartily despis- 
ing the Hindu sub-judge, arranged to start a 
little Mohurrum riot of their own. But the 
Hindus turned out and broke their heads; 
when finding lawlessness pleasant, Hindus 
and Mahommedans together raised an aim- 
less sort . of Donnybrook just to see how 
far they could go. They looted each others’ 
shops, and paid off private grudges in the 
regular way. It was a nasty little riot, but 
not worth putting in the newspapers. 

Michele was working in his office when he 
heard the sound that a man never forgets all 
his life — the ''ah-yah'" of an angry crowd. 
(When that sound drops about three tones, and 
changes to a thick, droning tit, the man who 
hears it had better go away if he is alone.) 


88 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


The native police inspector ran in and told 
Michele that the town was in an uproar and 
coming to wreck the telegraph office. The 
Babu put on his cap and quietly dropped out 
of the window ; while the police inspector^ 
afraid, but obeying the old race instinct which 
recognizes a drop of white blood as far as it 
can be diluted, said: “What orders does the 
sahib give?” 

The '"sahib” decided Michele. Though hor- 
ribly frightened, he felt that, for the hour, he, 
the man with the Cochin Jew and the menial 
uncle in his pedigree, was the only represen- 
tative of English authority in the place. Then 
he thought of Miss Vezzis and the fifty rupees, 
and took the situation on himself. There were 
seven native policemen in Tibasu, and four 
crazy smooth-bore muskets among them. All 
the men were gray with fear, but not beyond 
leading. Michele dropped the key of the tel- 
egraph instrument, and went out, at the head 
of his army, to meet the mob. As the shout- 
ing crew came round a corner of the road, he 
dropped and fired; the men behind him loos- 
ing instinctively at the same time. 

The whole crowd — curs to the backbone — 
yelled and ran; leaving one man dead, and 
another dying in the road. Michele was 
sweating with fear, but he kept his weakness 
under, and went down into the town, past the 
house where the sub-judge had barricaded 
himself. The streets were empty. Tibasu 
was more frightened than Michele, for the- 
mob had been taken at the right time. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. SQ 

Michele returned to the telegraph office, 
and sent a message to Chicacola asking for 
help. Before an answer came, he received a 
deputation of the elders of Tibasu, telling him 
that the sub-judge said his actions generally 
were “unconstitutional,” and trying to bully 
him. But the heart of Michele D’Cruze was 
big and white in his breast, because of his love 
for Miss Vezzis, the nurse-girl, and because he 
had tasted for the first time responsibility and 
success. Those two make an intoxicating 
drink, and have ruined more men than ever 
has whisky. Michele answered that the sub- 
judge might say what he pleased, but, until 
the assistant collector came, the telegraph sig- 
naler was the government of India in Tibasu, 
and the elders of the town would be held ac- 
countable for further rioting. Then they 
bowed their heads and said: “Show mercy!” 
or words to that effect, and went back in great 
fear; each accusing the other of having begun 
the rioting. 

Early in the dawn, after a night’s patrol with 
his seven policemen, Michele went down the 
road, musket in hand, to. meet the assistant 
collector who had ridden in to quell Tibasu. 
but, in the presence of this young Englishman, 
Michele felt himself slipping back more and 
more into the native, and the tale of the Tibasu 
riots ended, with the strain on the teller, in 
an hysterical outburst of tears, bred by sorrow 
that he had killed a man, shame that he could 
not feel as uplifted as he had felt through the 
night, and childish anger that his tongue could 


50 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

not do justice to his great deeds. It was the 
white drop in Michele’s veins dying out, 
though he did not know it. 

But the Englishman understood; and after 
he had schooled those men of Tibasu, and had 
conferred with the sub- judge till that excel- 
lent official turned green, he found time to 
draft an official letter describing the conduct of 
Michele. Which letter filtered through the 
proper channels and ended in the transfer of 
Michele up-country once more, on the imperial 
salary of sixty-six rupees a month. 

So he and Miss Vezzis were married with 
great state and ancientry ; and now there are 
several little D’ Cruzes sprawling about the 
verandas of the central telegraph office. 

But if the whole revenue of the department 
he serves were to be his reward, Michele could 
never, never repeat what he did at Tibasu for 
the sake of Miss Vezzis, the nurse-girl. 

Which proves that, when a man does good 
work out of all proportion to his pay, in seven 
cases out of nine there is a woman at the back 
of the .virtue. 

The two exceptions must have suffered from 
sunstroke. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


91 


WATCHES OF THE NIGHT. 

What is in the Brahmin’s books that is in the Brah- 
min’s heart. Neither you nor I knew there were so 
much evil in the world. — Hindu Proverb. 

This began in a practical joke; but it has 
gone far enough now, and is getting serious. 

Platte, the subaltern, being poor, had a 
Waterbury watch and a plain leather guard. 

The colonel had a Waterbury watch also, 
and for guard, the lip-strap of a curb-chain. 
Lip-straps make the best watch guards. They 
are strong and short. Between a lip-strap and 
an ordinary leather guard there is no great 
difference; between one Waterbury watch and 
another none at all. Every one in the station 
knew the colonel’s lip-strap. He was not a 
horsey man, but he liked people to believe 
he had been once ; and he wove fantastic stories 
of the hunting-bridle to which this particular 
lip-strap had belonged. Otherwise he was 
painfully religious. 

Platte and the colonel were dressing at the 
Club — both late for their engagements, and 
both in a hurry. That was kismet. The two 
watches were on a shelf below the looking- 
glass — guards hanging down. That was care- 
lessness. Platte changed first, snatched a 
watch, looked in the glass, settled his tie, and 


92 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


ran. Forty seconds later, the colonel did ex- 
actly the same thing, each man taking the 
other’s watch. 

You may have noticed that many religious 
people are deeply suspicious. They seem — 
for purely religious purposes, of course — to 
know more about iniquity than the unregen- 
erate. Perhaps they were specially bad before 
they became converted! At any rate, in the 
imputation of things evil, and in putting the 
worst construction on things innocent, a cer- 
tain type of good people maybe trusted to sur- 
pass all others. The colonel and his wife were 
of that type. But the colonel’s wife was the 
worst. She manufactured the station scandal, 
and talked to her ayah! Nothing more need 
be said. The colonel’s wife broke up the Lap- 
lace’s home. The colonel’s wife stopped the 
Ferris- Haughtrey engagement. The colonel’s 
wife induced young Buxton to keep his wife 
down in the plains through the first year of 
the marriage. Whereby little Mrs. Buxton 
died, and the baby with her. These things 
will be remembered against the colonel’s wife 
so long as there is a regiment in the country. 

But to come back to the colonel and Platte. 
They went their several ways from the dress- 
ing-room. The colonel dined with two chap- 
lains, while Platte went to a bachelor party, 
and whist to follow. 

Mark how things happen! If Platte’s sah 
had put the new saddle-pad on the mare, the 
butts of the territs would not have worked 
through the worn leather and the old pad into 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


93 


the mare’s withers when she was coming home 
at two o’clock in the morning. She would not 
have reared, bolted, fallen into a ditch, upset 
the cart, and sent Platte flying over an aloe- 
hedge on to Mrs. Larkyn’s well-kept lawn: 
and this tale would never have been written. 
But the mare did all these things, and while 
Platte was rolling over and over on the turf, 
like a shot rabbit, the watch and guard flew 
from his waistcoat — as an infantry major’s 
sword hops out of the scabbard when they are 
firing a feu de joie — and rolled and rolled in the 
moonlight, till it stopped under a window. 

Platte stuffed his handkerchief under the 
pad, put the cart straight, and went home. 

Mark again how kismet works! This would 
not happen once in a hundred years. Toward 
the end of his dinner with the two chaplains, 
the colonel let out his waistcoat and leaned 
over the table to look at some mission reports. 
The bar of the watchguard worked through the 
buttonhole, and the watch — Platte’s watch — 
slid quietly on to the carpet, where the bearer 
found it next morning and kept it. 

Then the colonel went home to the wife of 
his bosom ; but the driver of the carriage was 
drunk and lost his way. So the colonel re- 
turned at an unseemly hour and his excuses 
were not accepted. If the colonel’s wife had 
been an ordinary “vessel of wrath appointed 
for destruction, ’’ she would have known that 
when a man stays away on purpose his excuse 
is always sound and original. The very bald- 


94 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


ness of the colonel’s explanation proved its 
truth. 

See once more the workings of kismet! The 
colonel’s watch which came with Platte hur- 
riedly on to Mrs. Larkyn’s lawn, chose to stop 
just under Mrs. Larkyn’s window, where she 
saw it early in the morning, recognized it, and 
picked it up. She had heard the crash of 
Platte’s cart at two o’clock that morning, and 
his voice calling the mare names. She knew 
Platte and liked him. That day she showed 
him the watch and heard his story. He put 
his head on one side, winked and said: “How 
disgusting! Shocking old man! With his 
religious training, too! I should send the 
watch to the colonel’s wife and ask for expla- 
nations. ’’ 

Mrs. Larkyn thought for a minute of the 
Laplaces — whom she had known when Laplace 
and his wife believed in each other — and 
answered: “I will send it. I think it will do 
her good. But, remember, we must never 
tell her the truth. ’’ 

Platte guessed that his own watch was in the 
colonel’s possession, and thought that the re- 
turn of the lip-strapped Waterbury with a sooth- 
ing note from Mrs. Larkyn, would merely 
create a small trouble for a few minutes. Mrs. 
Larkyn knew better. She knew that any poison 
dropped would find good holding-ground in 
the heart of the colonel’s wife. 

The packet, and a note containing a few 
remarks on the colonel’s calling hours, were 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


95 


sent over to the colonel’s wife, who wept in 
her own room and took counsel with herself. 

If there was one woman under heaven whom 
the colonel’s wife hated with holy fervor it was 
Mrs. Larkyn. Mrs. Larkyn was a frivolous 
lady, and called the colonel’s wife “old cat.’’ 
The colonel’s wife said that somebody in Rev- 
elations was remarkably like Mrs. Larkyn. 
She mentioned other Scripture people as well 
from the Old Testament. (But the colonel’s 
wife was the only person who cared or dared 
to say anything- against Mrs. Larkyn. Every- 
one else accepted her as an amusing, honest 
little body.) Wherefore, to believe that her 
husband had been shedding watches under 
that “thing’s” window at ungodly hours, 
coupled with the fact of his late arrival on the 
previous night, was. . . . 

At this point she rose up and sought her hus- 
band. He denied everything except the owner- 
ship of the watch. She besought him, for his 
soul’s sake, to speak the truth. He denied 
afresh, with two bad words. Then a stony 
silence held the colonel’s wife, while a man 
could draw his breath five times. 

The speech that followed is no affair of mine 
or yours. It was made up of wifely and 
womanly jealousy; knowledge of old age and 
sunken cheeks; deep mistrust born of the text 
that says even little babies’ hearts are as bad 
as they make them ; rancorous hatred of Mrs. 
Larkyn, and the tenets of the creed of the 
colonel’s wife’s upbringing. 

Over and above all was the damning lip- 


96 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


strapped Waterbury, ticking away in the palm 
of her shaking, withered hand. At that hour, 

I think, the colonel’s wife realized a little of 
the restless suspicion she had injected into old 
Laplace’s mind, a little of poor Miss Haugh- 
trey’s misery, and some of the canker that ate 
into Buxton’s heart as he watched his wife 
dying before his eyes. The colonel stam- 
mered and tried to explain. Then he remem- 
bered that his watch had disappeared; and the 
mystery grew greater. The colonel’s wife 
talked and prayed by turns till she was tired, 
and went away to devise means for “chasten- 
ing the stubborn heart of her husband.” 
Which translated, means, in our slang, “tail- 
twisting. ’ ’ 

You see, being deeply impressed with the 
doctrine of original sin, she could not believe 
in the face of appearances. She knew too 
much, and jumped to the wildest conclusions. 

But it was good for her. It spoiled her life, 
as she had spoiled the life of the Laplaces. 
She had lost her faith in the colonel, and — 
here the creed-suspicion ' came in — he might, 
she argued, have erred many times, before a 
merciful Providence, at the hands of so 
unworthy an instrument as Mrs. Larkyn, had 
established his guilt. He was a bad, wicked, 
gray-haired profligate. This may sound too 
sudden a revulsion for a long-wedded wife; 
but it is a venerable fact that, if a man or 
woman makes a practice of, and takes a delight 
in, believing and spreading evil of people indif- 
ferent to him or her, he or she will end in 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


97 


believing evil of folk very near and dear. You 
may think, also, that the mere incident of the 
watch was too small and trivial to raise this 
misunderstanding. It is another aged fact 
that, in life as well as racing, all the worst 
accidents happen at little ditches and cut-down 
fences. In the same way you sometimes see a 
woman who would have made a Joan of Arc in 
another century and climate, threshing herself 
to pieces over all the mean worry of house- 
keeping. But that is another story. 

Her belief only made the colonel’s wife more 
wretched, because it insisted so strongly on 
the villainy of men. Remembering what she 
had done, it was pleasant to watch her unhap- 
piness, and the penny-farthing attempts she 
made to hide it from the Station. But the 
Station knew and laughed heartlessly; for 
they had heard the story of the watch, with 
much dramatic gesture, from Mrs. Larkyn’s 
lips. 

Once or twice Platte said to Mrs. Larkyn, 
seeing that the colonel had not cleared him- 
self: “This thing has gone far enough. I 
move we tell the colonel’s wife how it hap- 
pened.’’ Mrs. Larkyn shut her lips and shook 
her head, and vowed that the colonel’s wife 
must bear her punishment as best she could. 
Now Mrs. Larkyn was a frivolous woman, in 
whom none would have suspected deep hate. 
So Platte took no action, and came to believe 
gradually, from the colonel’s silence, that the 
colonel must have “run off the line,’’ some- 
where that night, and, therefore, preferred to 

7 


98 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Stand sentence on the lesser count of rambling 
into other people’s compounds out of calling- 
hours. Platte forgot about the watch business 
after a while, and moved down country with 
his regiment. Mrs. Larkyn went home when 
her husband’s tour of Indian service expired. 
She never forgot. 

But Platte was quite right when he said that 
the joke had gone too far. The mistrust and 
the tragedy of it— which we outsiders cannot 
see and do not believe in — are killing the col- 
onel’s wife, and are making the colonel 
wretched. If either of them read this story, 
they can depend upon its being a fairly true 
account of the case, and can “kiss and make 
friends.’’ 

Shakespeare alludes to the pleasure of 
watching an engineer being shelled by his 
own battery. Now this shows that poets 
should not write about what they do not under- 
stand. Any one could have told him that 
sappers and gunners are perfectly different 
branches of the service. But if you correct 
the sentence, and substitute gunner for sap- 
per, the moral comes just the same. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


99 


THE OTHER MAN. 

When the earth was sick and the skies were gray, 

And the woods were rotted with rain, 

The Dead Man rode through the autumn day 
To visit his love again. 

—Old Ballad. 

Far back in the “seventies/' before they 
had built any public offices at Simla, and the 
broad road round Jakko lived in a pigeon-hole 
in the P. W. D. hovels, her parents made Miss 
Gaurey marry Colonel Schreiderling. i He 
could not have been much more than thirty- 
five years her senior; and, as he lived on two 
hundred rupees a month and had money of his 
own, he was well off. He belonged to good 
people, and suffered in the cold weather from 
lung complaints. In the hot weather he 
dangled on the brink of heat-apoplexy; but 
it never quite killed him. 

Understand, I do not blame Schreiderling. 
He was a good husband according to his lights, 
and his temper only failed him when he was 
being nursed, which was some seventeen days 
in each month. He was almost generous to 
his wife about money matters, and that, for 
him, was a concession. Still Mrs. Schreider- 
ling was not happy. They married her when 
she was this side of twenty and had given all 
her poor little heart to another man. I have 
kifC. 


IOC 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


forgotten his name, but we will call him the 
Other Man. He had no money and no respects. 
He was not even good-looking; and I think he 
was in the commissariat or transport. But, in 
spite of all these things, she loved him very 
badly ; and there was some sort of an engage- 
ment between the two when Schreiderling 
appeared and told Mrs. Gaurey that he wished 
to marry her daughter. Then the other engage- 
ment was broken off — washed away by Mrs. 
Gaurey’s tears, for that lady governed her 
house by weeping over disobedience to her 
authority and the lack of reverence she 
received in her old age. The daughter did 
not take after her mother. She never cried. 
Not even at the wedding. 

The Other Man bore his loss quietly, and was 
transferred to as bad a station as he could find. 
Perhaps the climate consoled him. He suf- 
fered from intermittent fever, and that may 
have distracted him from his other trouble. 
He was weak about the heart also, both ways. 
One of the valves was affected, and the fever 
made it worse. This showed itself later on. 

Then many months passed, and Mrs. Schrei- 
derling took to being ill. She did not pine 
away like people in story-books, but she seemed 
to pick up every form of illness that went 
about a station, from simple fever upward. 
She was never more than ordinarily pretty at 
the best of times, and the illness made her 
ugly. Schreiderling said so. He prided him- 
self on speaking his mind. 

When she ceased being pretty, he left her to 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 101 


her own devices, and went back to the lairs of 
his bachelordom. She used to trot up and 
down Simla Mall in a forlorn sort of way, 
with a gray Terai hat well on the back of her 
head, and a shocking bad saddle under her. 
Schreiderling’s generosity stopped at the horse. 
He said that any saddle would do for a woman 
as nervous as Mrs. Schreiderling. She never 
was asked to dance, because she did not dance 
well; and she was so dull and uninteresting 
that her box very seldom had any cards in it. 
Schreiderling said that if he had known that 
she was going to be such a scarecrow after her 
marriage he would never have married her. 
He always prided himself on speaking his 
mind, did Schreiderling! 

He left her at Simla one August, and went 
down to his regiment. Then she revived a 
little, but she never recovered her looks. I 
found out at the Club that the Other Man is 
coming up sick — very sick — on an off chance 
of recovery. The fever and the heart-valves 
had nearly killed him. She knew that, too, 
and she knew — what I had no interest in 
knowing — when he was coming up. I suppose 
he wrote to tell her. They had not seen each 
other since a month before the wedding. 
And here comes the unpleasant part of the 
story. 

A late call kept me down at the Dovedell 
Hotel till dusk one evening. Mrs. Schreider- 
ling had been flitting up and down the Mall 
all the afternoon in the rain. Coming up along 
the cartroad, a tonga passed me, and my pony, 


102 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


tired with standing so long, set off at a canter. 
Just by the road down to the tonga office Mrs. 
Schreiderling, dripping from head to foot, 
was waiting for the tonga. I turned uphill, as 
the tonga was no affair of mine; and just then 
she began to shriek. I went back at once and 
saw, under the tonga office lamps, Mrs. Schrei- 
derling kneeling in the wet road by the back of 
the newly arrived to7iga^ screaming hideously. 
Then she fell face down in the dirt as I came 
up. 

Sitting in the back seat very square and firm, 
with one hand on the awning-stanchion and 
the wet pouring off his hat and mustache, was 
the Other Man — dead. The sixty-mile uphill 
jolt had been too much for his valve, I suppose. 
The to?tga-6.viYQT said: “The sahib died two 
stages out of Solon. Therefore, I tied him 
with a rope, lest he should fall out by the 
way, and so came to Simla. Will the sahib 
give me bukshish? It,” pointing to the Other 
Man, “should have given one rupee.” 

The Other Man sat with a grin on his face, 
as if he enjoyed the joke of his arrival; and 
Mrs. Schreiderling, in the mud, began to 
groan. There was no one except us four in 
the office and it was raining heavily. The 
first thing was to take Mrs. Schreiderling home, 
and the second was to prevent her name from 
being mixed up with the affair. The tonga- 
driver received five rupees to find a bazar 
’rickshaw for Mrs. Schreiderling. He was to 
tell the tonga Babu afterward of the Other 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 103 


Man, and the Babu was to make such arrange- 
ments as seemed best. 

Mrs. Schreiderling was carried into the shed 
out of the rain, and for three-quarters of an 
hour we two waited for the ’rickshaw. The 
Other Man was left exactly as he had arrived. 
Mrs. Schreiderling would do everything but 
cry, which might have helped her. She tried 
to scream as soon as her senses came back, 
and then she began praying for the Other 
Man’s soul. Had she not been as honest as 
the day, she would have prayed for her own 
soul too. I waited to hear her do this, but she 
did not. Then I tried to get some of the mud 
off her habit. Lastly, the ’rickshaw came, 
and I got her away — partly by force. It was a 
terrible business from beginning to end; but 
most of all when the ’rickshaw had to squeeze 
between the wall and the tonga^ and she saw 
by the lamplight that thin, yellow hand grasp- 
ing the awning stanchion. 

She was taken home just as every one was 
going to a dance at Viceregal Lodge — “Peter- 
hoff” it was then — and the doctor found out 
that she had fallen from her horse, that I had 
picked her up at the back of Jakko, and really 
deserved great credit for the prompt manner 
in which I had secured medical aid. She did 
not die — men of Schreiderling’s stamp marry 
women who don’t die easily. They live and 
grow ugly. 

She never told of her one meeting, since her 
marriage, with the Other Man; and, when the 
chill and cough following the exposure of that 


104 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


evening, allowed her abroad, she never 
word or sign alluded to having met me by the 
tonga office. Perhaps she never knew. She 
used to trot up and down the Mall, on that 
shocking bad saddle, looking as if she expected 
to meet some one round the corner every 
minute. Two years afterward she went home 
and died — at Bournemouth, I think. 

Schreiderling, when he grew maudlin at 
mess, used to talk about “my poor dear wife.’* 
He always set great store on speaking his mind, 
did Schreiderling! 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 105 


CONSEQUENCES. 

Rosicrucian subtleties 

In the Orient had rise ; . 

Ye may find their teachers still 
Under'jacatala’s Hill. 

Seek ye Bombast Paracelsus, 

Read what Flood the Seeker tells us 
Of the Dominant that runs 
Through the cycles of the Suns — 

Read my story last and see 
Luna at her apogee. 

There are yearly appointments, and two- 
yearly appointments, and five-yearly appoint- 
ments at Simla, and there are, or used to be, 
permanent appointments, whereon you stayed 
up for the term of your natural life and 
secured red cheeks and a nice income. Of 
course, you could descend in the cold weather; 
for Simla is rather dull then. 

Tarrion came from goodness knows where — 
all away and away in some forsaken part of 
central India, where they call Pachmari a 
“sanitarium,” and drive behind trotting bul- 
locks, I believe. He belonged to a regiment, 
but what he really wanted to do was to escape 
from his regiment and live in Simla forever 
and ever. He had no preference for anything 
in particular beyond a good horse and a nice 
partner. He thought he could do everything 
well; which is a beautiful belief when you 


106 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


hold it with all your heart. He was clever in 
many ways, and good to look at, and always 
made people round him comfortable — even in 
central India. 

So he went up to Simla, and, because he was 
clever and amusing, he gravitated naturally to 
Mrs. Hauksbee, who could forgive everything 
but stupidity. Once he did her great service 
by changing the date on an invitation-card for 
a big dance which Mrs. Hauksbee wished to 
attend, but couldn’t because she had quar- 
reled with the A.-D.-C. , who took care, being 
a mean man, to invite her to a small dance on 
the 6th instead of the big ball of the 26th. It 
was a very clever piece of forgery; and when 
Mrs. Hauksbee showed the A.-D.-C., her invi- 
tation-card, and chaffed him mildly for not 
better managing his vendettas, he really 
thought that he had made a mistake; and — 
which was wise — realized that it was no use to 
fight with Mrs. Hauksbee. She was grateful 
to Tarrion and asked what she could do for him. 
He said simply; “I’m a freelance up here on 
leave, on the lookout for what I can loot. I 
haven’t a square inch of interest in all Simla. 
My name isn’t known to any man with an 
appointment in his gift, and I want an appoint- 
ment — a good, sound, pukka one. I believe 
you can do anything you turn yourself to. 
Will you help me?’’ Mrs. Hauksbee thought 
for a minute, and passed the lash of her riding 
whip through her lips, as was her custom when 
thinking. Then her eyes sparkled and she 
said: “I will;’’ and she shook hands on it. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 107 


Tarrion, having perfect confidence in this great 
woman took no further thought of the business 
at all, except to wonder what sort of an appoint- 
ment hd would win. 

Mrs. Hauksbee began calculating the prices 
of all the heads of departments and members 
of council she knew, and the more she thought 
the more she laughed, because her heart was 
in the game and it amused her. Then she took 
a civil list and ran over a few of the appoint- 
ments. There are some beautiful appoint- 
ments in the civil list. Eventually, she decided 
that, though Tarrion was too good for the 
political department, she had better begin by 
trying to get him in there. What were her 
own plans to this end does not matter in the 
least, for luck or fate played into her hands 
and she had nothing to do but to watch the 
course of events and take the credit of them. 

All viceroys, when they first came out, pass 
through the “diplomatic secrecy” craze. It 
wears off in time ; but they all catch it in the 
beginning, because they are new to the country. 
The particular viceroy who was suffering from 
the complaint just then — this was a long time 
ago, before Lord Dufferin ever came from 
Canada, or Lord Ripan from the bosom of the 
English Church — had it very badly and the 
result was that men who were new to keeping 
official secrets went about looking unhappy; 
and the viceroy plumed himself on the way in 
which he had instilled notions of reticence 
into his staff. 

Now, the supreme government have a care- 


108 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


less custom of committing what they do to 
printed papers. These papers deal with all 
sorts of things — from the payment of Rs. 200 
to a “secret service" native, up to rebukes 
administered to vakils and wx)lamids of native 
states, and rather brusque letters to native 
princes, telling them to put their houses in 
order, to refrain from kidnapping women, or 
filling offenders with pounded red pepper, and 
eccentricities of that kind. Of course, these 
things could never be made public, because 
native princes never err officially, and their 
states are, officially as well administered as our 
territories. Also, the private allowances to 
various queer people are not exactly matters 
to put into newspapers, though they give 
quaint reading sometimes. When the supreme 
government is at Simla, these papers are pre- 
pared there, and go round to the people who 
ought to see them in office-boxes or by post. 
The principle of secrecy was to that viceroy 
quite as important as the practice, and he held 
that a benevolent despotism like ours should 
never allow even little things such as appoint- 
ments of subordinate clerks, to leak out till 
the proper time. He was always remarkable 
for his principles. 

There was a very important batch of papers 
ia preparation at that time. It had to travel 
from one end of Simla to the other by hand. 
It was not put into an official envelope, but a 
large, square, pale-pink one ; the matter being 
in manuscript on soft crinkly paper. It was 
addressed to “The Head Clerk, etc., etc." 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 109 


Now between “The Head Clerk, etc., etc.," 
and “Mrs. Hauksbee” and a flourish, is no 
very great difference if the address be written 
in a very bad hand, as this was. The chaprassi 
who took the envelope was not more of an 
idiot than most chaprassis. ‘ He merely forgot 
where this most unofficial cover was to be de- 
livered, and so asked the first Englishman he 
met, who happened to be a man riding down 
to Annandale in a great hurry. The English- 
man hardly looked, said, ''Hauksbee Sahib ki 
and went on. So did the chaprassi^ 
because that letter was the last in stock and he 
wanted to get his work over. There was no 
book to sign; he thrust the letter into Mrs. 
Hauksbee’s bearer’s hands and went off to 
smoke with a friend. Mrs. Hauksbee was 
expecting some cut-out pattern things in flimsy 
paper from a friend. As soon as she got the 
big square packet, therefore, she said, “Oh, 
the dear creature!” and tore it open with a 
paper-knife, and all the manuscript inclosures 
tumbled out on the floor. 

Mrs. Hauksbee began reading. I have said 
the batch was rather important. That is quite 
enough for you to know. It referred to some 
correspondence, two measures, a peremptory 
order to a native chief and two dozen other 
things. Mrs. Hauksbee gasped as she read, 
for the first glimpse of the naked machinery 
of the great Indian government, stripped of 
its casings, and lacquer, and paint, and guard- 
rails, impresses even the most stupid man. 
And Mrs. Hauksbee was a clever woman. She 


110 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


was a little afraid at first, and felt as if she 
had laid hold of a lightning flash by the tail, 
and did not quite know what to do wth it. 
There were remarks and initials at the side 
of the papers ; and some of the remarks were 
rather more severe than the papers. The ini- 
tials belonged to men who are all dead or 
gone now; but they were great in their day, 
Mrs. Hauksbee read on and thought calmly as 
she read. Then the value of her trove struck 
her, and she cast about for the best method of 
using it. Then Tarrion dropped in, and they 
read through all the papers together, and 
Tarrion, not knowing how she had come by 
them, vowed that Mrs. Hauksbee was the 
greatest woman on earth. Which I believe 
was as true, or nearly so. 

“The honest course is always the best,” 
said Tarrion, after an hour and a half of study 
and conversation. “All things considered, 
the intelligence branch is about my form. 
Either that or the foreign offlce. I go to lay 
siege to the High Gods in their temples.” 

He did not seek a little man, or a little big 
man, or a weak head of a strong department, 
but he called on the biggest and strongest 
man that the government owned, and ex- 
plained that he wanted an appointment at 
Simla on a good salary. The compound insol- 
ence of this amused the Strong Man, and, as 
he had nothing to do for the moment, he lis- 
tened to the proposals of the audacious Tar- 
rion. “You have, I presume, some special 
qualifications, beside the gift of self-assertion, 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Ill 


for the claims you put forward?” said the 
Strong Man. “That, sir,” said Tarrion, “is 
for you to judge.” Then he began, for he had 
a good memory, quoting a few of the more 
important notes in the papers — slowly and one 
by one as a man drops chlorodyne into a glass. 
When he had reached the peremptory order — 
and it was a peremptory order — the Strong 
Man was troubled. 

Tarrion wound up: “And I fancy that 
special knowledge of this kind is at least as 
valuable for, let us say, a berth in the foreign 
office, as the fact of being a nephew of a dis- 
tinguished officer’s wife.” That hit the 
Strong Man hard, for the last appointment to 
the foreign office had been by black favor, and 
he knew it. “I’ll see what I can do for you,” 
said the Strong Man. “Many thanks, ” said 
Tarrion. Then he left, and the Strong Man 
departed to see how the appointment was to be 
blocked. 

Followed a pause of eleven days; with thun- 
ders and lightnings and much telegraphing. 
The appointment was not a very important 
one, carrying only between Rs. 500 and Rs. 700 
a month ; but, as the viceroy said, it was the 
principle of diplomatic secrecy that had to be 
maintained, and it was more than likely that a 
boy so well supplied with special information 
would be worth translating. So they trans- 
lated him. They must have suspected him, 
though he protested that his information was 
due to singular talents of his own. Now, much 


112 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


of this story, including the after-history of the 
missing envelope, you must fill in for yourself, 
because there are reasons why it cannot be 
written. If you do not know about things 
Up Above, you won’t understand how to fill it 
in, and you will say it is impossible. 

What the viceroy said when Tarrion was 
introduced to him was: “So this is the boy 
who ‘rushed’ the government of India, is it? 
Recollect, sir, that is not done twice.’’ So he 
must have known something. 

What Tarrion said when he saw his appoint- 
ment gazetted was: “If Mrs. Hauksbee were 
twenty years younger, and I her husband I 
should be Viceroy of India in fifteen years. ’’ 

What Mrs. Hauksbee said when Tarrion 
thanked her almost with tears in his eyes was 
first: “I told you so!” and next to herself; 
“What fools men are!” 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 113 


THE CONVERSION OF AURELIAN 
McGOGGIN. 

Ride with an idle whip, ride with an unused heel. 

But, once in a way, there will come a day 

When the colt must be taught to feel, 

The lash that falls, and the curb that galls, and the 
sting of the roweled steel. 

— Life’s Handicap. 

This is not a tale exactly. It is a tract ; and 
I am immensely proud of it. Making a tract 
is a feat. 

Every man is entitled to his own religious 
opinions ; but no man — least of all a junior — 
has a right to thrust these down other men’s 
throats. The government sends out weird 
civilians now and again ; but McGoggin was the 
queerest exported for a long time. He was 
clever — brilliantly clever — but his cleverness 
worked the wrong way. Instead of keeping 
to the study of the vernaculars, he had read 
some books written by a man called Comte, I 
think, and a man called Spencer, and a Pro- 
fessor Clifford. (You will find these books in 
the library.) They deal with people’s insides 
from the point of view of men who have no 
stomachs. There was no order against his 
reading them; but his mamma should have 
smacked him. They fermented in his head, 
and he came out to India with a rarified reli- 


114 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


gion over and above his work. It was not much 
of a creed. It only proved that men had no 
souls, and there was no God, and no hereafter, 
and that you must worry along somehow for 
the good of humanity. 

One of its minor tenets seemed to be that 
the one thing more sinful than giving an 
order was obeying it. At least, that was what 
McGoggin said; but I suspect he had misread 
his primers. I do not say a word against this 
creed. It was made up in town, where there 
is nothing but machinery and asphalt and 
building — all shut in by the fog. Naturally a 
man grows to think that there is no one higher 
than himself, and that the Metropolitan Board 
of Works made everything. But in this 
country, where you really see humanity — raw, 
brown, naked humanity — with nothing be- 
tween it and the blazing sky, and only the 
used-up, overhandled earth underfoot, the 
notion somehow dies away, and most folk come 
back to simpler theories. Life in India is not 
long enough to waste in proving that there is 
no one in particular at the head of affairs. For 
this reason : The deputy is above the assistant, 
the commissioner above the deputy, the lieu- 
tenant-governor above the commissioner, and 
the viceroy above all four, under the orders of 
the secretary of state who is responsible to the 
empress. If the empress be not responsible to 
her Maker — if there is no Maker for her to be 
responsible to — the entire system of our admin- 
istration must be wrong, which is manifestly 
impossible. At home men are to be excused. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 115 


They are stalled up a good deal and get intel- 
lectually “beany,” When you take a gross, 
“beany” horse to exercise, he slavers and slob- 
bers over the bit till you can’t see the horns. 
But the bit is there just the same. Men do not 
get “beany” in India. The climate and the 
work are against playing bricks with words. 

If McGoggin had kept his creed, with the 
capital letters and the endings in “isms,” to 
himself, no one would have cared: but his 
grandfathers on both sides had been Wesleyan 
preachers, and the preaching strain came out 
in his mind. He wanted every one at the club 
to see that they had no souls too, and to help 
him to eliminate his Creator. As a good 
many men told him, he undoubtedly had no 
soul, because he was so young, but it did not 
follow that his seniors were equally undevel- 
oped; and, whether there was another world 
or not, a man still wanted to read his papers in 
this. “But that is not the point — that is not 
the point!” Aurelian used to say. Then men 
threw sofa-cushions at him and told him to go 
to any particular place he might believe in. 
They christened him the“ Blastoderm’' — hesaid 
he came from a family of that name some- 
where, in the pre-historic ages — and, by insult 
and laughter strove to choke him dumb, for he 
was an unmitigated nuisance at the club, be- 
sides being an offense to the older men. His 
deputy commissioner, who was working on the 
frontier, when Aurelian was rolling on a bed- 
quilt, told him that, for a clever boy, Aure- 
lian was a very big idiot. And, you know, if 


116 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


he had gone on with his work, he would have 
been caught up to the Secretairat in a few 
years. He was just the type that goes there — 
all head, no physique, and a hundred theories. 
Not a soul was interested in McGoggin’s soul. 
He might have had two, or none, or some- 
body else’s. His business was to obey orders 
and keep abreast of his files instead of devas- 
tating the club with “isms.” 

He worked brilliantly; but he could not 
accept any order without trying to better it. 
That was the fault of his creed. It made 
men too responsible and left too much to their 
honor. You can sometimes ride an old horse 
in a halter; but never a colt. McGoggin took 
more trouble over his cases than any of the 
men of his year. He may have fancied that 
thirty-page judgments on fifty-rupee cases — 
both sides perjured to the gillet — advanced the 
cause of humanity. At any rate, he worked 
too much, and worried and fretted over the 
rebukes he received, and lectured away on his 
ridiculous creed out of office, till the doctor 
had to warn him that he was overdoing it. No 
man can toil eighteen annas in the rupee in 
June without suffering. But McGoggin was 
still intellectually “beany” and proud of him- 
self and his powers, and he would take no 
hint. He worked nine hours a day steadily. 

“Very well,” said the doctor, “you’ll break 
down because you are overengfined for your 
beam.” McGoggin was a little chap. 

One day, the collapse came — as dramatically 
as if it had been meant to embellish a tract. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 117 


It was just before the rains. We were sit- 
ting in the veranda in the dead, hot, close air, 
gasping and praying that the black-blue clouds 
would let down and bring the cool. Very, 
very far away, there was a faint whisper, 
which was the roar of the rains breaking over 
the river. One of the men heard it, got out of 
his chair, listened, and said, naturallv enough : 
“Thank God!” 

Then the Blastoderm turned in his place 
and said: “Why? I assure you it’s only the 
result of perfectly natural causes — atmospheric 
phenomena of the simplest kind. Why you 
should, therefore, return thanks to a Being 
who never did exist — who is only a fig- 
ment ” 

“Blastoderm,” grunted the man in the next 
chair, “dry up, and throw me over the 
Pioneer. We know all about your figments.” 
The Blastoderm reached out to the table, took 
up one paper and jumped as if something had 
stung him. Then he handed the paper over. 

“As I was saying,” he went on slowly and 
with an effort — “due to perfectly natural 
causes — perfectly natural causes. I mean ’ ’ 

“Hi! Blastoderm, you’ve given me the 
Calcutta Mercantile Advertiser.” 

The dust got up in little whorls, while the 
tree-tops rocked and the kites whistled. But 
no one was looking at the coming of the rains. 
We were all staring at the Blastoderm, who 
had risen from his chair and was fighting with 
his speech. Then he said, still more slowly: 

“Perfectly conceivable — dictionary — red 


118 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

oak — amenable — cause — retaining — shuttle- 
cock — alone. ’ ’ 

“Blastoderm’s drunk,’’ said one man. But 
the Blastoderm was not drunk. He looked at 
us in a dazed sort of way, and began motion- 
ing with his hands in the half-light as the 
clouds closed overhead. Then — with a scream : 

“What is it? — can’t — reserve — attainable — 
market — obscure ’ ’ 

But his speech seemed to freeze in him, and 
— just as the lightning shot two tongues that 
cut the whole sky into three pieces and the 
rain fell in quivering sheets — the Blastoderm 
was struck dumb. He stood pawing and 
champing like a hard-held horse, and his eyes 
were full of terror. 

The doctor came over in three minutes, and 
heard the story. “It’s aphasia^" he said. 
“Take him to his room. I knew the smash 
would come.’’ We carried the Blastoderm 
across, in the pouring rain, to his quarters, 
and the doctor gave him bromide of potassium 
to make him sleep. 

Then the doctor came back to us and told 
us that aphasia was like all the arrears of 
“Punjab Head” falling in a lump; and that 
only once before — in the case of a sepoy — had 
he met with so complete a case. I myself 
have seen mild aphasia in an overworked man, 
but this sudden dumbness was uncanny — 
though, as the Blastoderm himself might have 
said, due to “perfectly natural causes.” 

“He’ll have to take leave after this,” said 
the doctor. “He won’t be fit for work for an- 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


119 


Other three months. No; it isn’t insanity or 
anything like it. It’s only complete loss of 
control over the speech and memory. I fancy 
it will keep the Blastoderm quiet, though.” 

Two days later the Blastoderm found his 
tongue again. The first question he asked 
was; “What was it?” The doctor enlightened 
him. “But I can’t understand it!” said the 
Blastoderm: “I’m quite sane; but I can’t be 
sure of my mind, it seems — my own memory — 
can I?” 

“Go up into the Hills for three months, and 
don’t think about it,” said the doctor. 

“But I can’t understand it,” repeated the 
Blastoderm. “It was my own mind and 
memory. ” 

“I can’t help it,” said the doctor; “there 
are a good many things you can’t understand; 
and by the time you have put in my length 
of service you’ll know exactly how much a 
man dare call his own in this world.” 

The stroke cowed the Blastoderm. He could 
not understand it. He went into the Hills in 
fear and trembling, wondering whether he 
would be permitted to reach the end of any 
sentence he began. 

This gave him a wholesome feeling of mis- 
trust. The legitimate explanation, -that he 
had been overworking himself, failed to satisfy 
him. Something had wiped his lips of speech, 
as a mother wipes the milky lips of her child, 
and he was afraid — horribly afraid. 

So the Club had rest when he returned; 
and if ever you came across Aurelian McGog- 


120 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

gin laying down the law on things human — he 
doesn’t seem to know as much as he used to 
about things divine — put your forefinger on 
your lip for a moment, and see what happens. 

Don’t blame me if he throws a glass at your 
head! 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


121 


THE TAKING OF LUNGTUNGPEN. 

“So we loosed a bloomin’ volley, 

And we made the beggars cut, 

An’ when our pouch was emptied out. 

We used the bloomin’ butt. 

Ho! My! 

Don’t yer come anigh, 

When Tommy is a playin’ with the baynit an’ the butt.” 

— Barrack Room Ballad. 

My friend Private Mulvaney told me this, 
sitting on the parapet of the road to Dagshai, 
when we were hunting butterflies together. 
He had theories about the army, and colored 
clay pipes perfectly. He said that the young 
soldier is the best to work with, “on account 
av the surpassing innocince av the child.” 

“Now, listen!” said Mulvaney, throwing 
himself full length on the wall in the sun. 
“I’m a born scutt av the barrick-room ! The 
army’s mate an’ dhrink to me, bekaze I’m 
wan av the few that can’t quit ut. I’ve put in 
sivinteen years, an’ the pipe-clay’s in the mar- 
row av me. Av I could have kept out av wan 
big dhrink a month, I would have been a 
hon’ry lift’nint b}^ this time — a nuisance to my 
betthers, a laughin’-shtock to my equils, an’ a 
curse to meself. Bein’ fwhat I am, I’m Privit 
Mulvaney, wid no good-»onduc’ pay an’ a 
devourin’ thirst. Always barrin’ me little 


122 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


frind Bobs Bahadur, I know as much about the 
army as most men.” 

I said something here. 

“Wolseley be shot! Betune you an’ me an* 
that butterfly-net, he’s a ramblin’, incoherint 
sort av a divil, wid wan oi on the quane an’ the 
coort, and the other on his blessed silf — ever- 
lastin’ly playing Saysar an’ Alexandrier rowled 
into a lump. Now Bobs is a sinsible little 
man. Wid Bobs an’ a few three-year-olds, I’d 
swape any army av the earth into a jhairuniy 
an ’throw it away afhterward. Faith, I’m not 
jokin’! ’Tis the bhoys — the raw bhoys — that 
don’t know fwhat a bullet manes, an’ wudn’t 
care av they did — that dhu the work. They’re 
crammed wid bullmate till they fairly ramps 
wid good livin’; and thin, av they don’t fight, 
they blow each other’s bids off. ’Tis trut’ I’m 
tellin’ you. They shold be kept on dalbhat an’ 
kijri in the hot weather; but there’d be a 
mut’ny av ’twas done. 

“Did ye iver hear how Privit Mulvaney tuk 
the town av Lungtungpen? I thought not. 
’Twas the lift’nint got the credit ; but it was me 
planned the schame. A little before I was 
inviladed from Burma, me an’ four and twenty 
young wans undher a Lift’nint Brazenose, was 
ruinin’ our dijeshins thryin’ to catch dacoits. 
An’ such double-ended divils I niver knew! 
’Tis only a dah an’ a Snider that makes a 
dacoit. Widout thim, he’s a paceful cultiva- 
tor, an’ felony for to shoot. We hunted, an’ 
we hunted, an’ tuk fever an’ elephints now 
an’ again; but no dacoits. Evenshually, we 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


123 


puckarowed wan man. ‘Trate him tinderly, ’ 
sez the lift’nint. So I tuk him away into the 
jungle, wid the Burmese interprut’r an’ my 
clanin’ rod. Sez I to the man: ‘My paceful 
squireen,’ sez I, ‘you shquot on your hunkers 
an’ dimonstrate to my frind here where your 
frinds are whin they’re at home?’ Wid that I 
introjuced him to the clanin’-rod, and he com- 
minst to jabber; the interprut’r interruptin’ in 
betweens, an’ me helpin’ the intilligince de- 
partmint wid my clanin’-rod whin the man 
misremimbered. 

“Prisintly I learned that, acrost the river, 
about nine miles away, was a town just dhrip- 
pin’ wid dahs, an’ bohsan’ arrows, an’ dacoits, 
an’ elephints, 2.rC jingles. ‘Good,’ sez I. ‘This 
office will now close!’ 

“That night, I went to the lift’nint an’ com- 
municates my information. I never thought 
much of Lift’nint Brazenose till that night. 
He was shtiff wid books an’ the-ouries, an’ all 
manner av thrimmin’s no manner av use. 
‘Town did ye say?’ sez he. ‘Accordin’ to the 
the-ouries av war, we shud wait for rein force- 
mints. ’ ‘Faith!’ thinks I, ‘we’d betther dig 
our graves thin’ ; for the nearest throops was 
up to their shtocks in the marshes out Mimbu 
way. ‘But,’ says the lift’nint, ‘since ’tis a 
speshil case. I’ll make an excepshin. We’ll 
visit this Lungtungpen to-night. ’ 

“The bhoys was fairly woild wid deloight 
whin I tould ’em; an’ by this an’ that, they 
wint through the jungle like buck-rabbits. 
About midnight we came to the shtrame which 


124 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


I had clane forgot to min shin to my orficer. 
1 was on ahead, wid four bhoys, an’ I thought 
that the lift’nint might want to the-ourize. 
‘Shtrip, bhoys!’ sez 1. ‘Shtrip to the buff, an’ 
shwim in where glory waits!’ ‘But I can’t 
shwim!’ sez two av thim. ‘To think I should 
live to hear that from a bhoy wid a board- 
school edukashin !’ sez I. ‘Take a lump av 
thimber, an’ me an’ Conolly here will ferry ye 
over, ye young ladies!’ 

“We got an ould tree-trunk, an’ pushed off 
wid the kits an’ the rifles on it. The night 
was chokin’ dhark, an’ just as we was fairly 
embarked, I heard the lift’nint behind av me 
callin’ out. ‘There’s a bit av a nullah here, 
sorr, ’ sez I, ‘but I can feel the bottom already. ’ 
So I cud, for I was not a yard from the 
bank. 

“ ‘ Bit av a nullah! Bit av an eshtuary!’ sez 
the lift’nint. ‘Go on, ye mad Irishman! 
Shtrip, bhoys!’ I heard him laugh; an’ the 
bhoys begun shtrippin’ an’ rollin’ a log into 
the water to put their kits on. So me an’ 
Conolly shtruck out through the warm wather 
wid our log, an’ the rest come on behind. 

“That shtrame was miles woide! Orth’ris, 
on the rear-rank log, whispers we had got into 
the Thames below Sheerness by mistake. 
‘Kape on shwimmin’ ye little blayguard, ’ sez 
I, ‘an’ don’t go pokin’ your dirty jokes at the 
Irriwadd}^’ ‘Silence, men!’ sings out the 
lift’nint. So we shwum on into the black 
dhark, wid our chests on the logs, trustin’ in 
the saints an’ the luck av the British Army. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 125 


“Evenshually, we hit ground — a bit av sand 
— an’ a man. I put my heel on the back av 
him. He skreeched an’ ran. 

“ ‘Now we’ve done it!’ sez Lift’nint Braze- 
nose. ‘Where the divil is Lungtungpen?’ 
There was about a minute and a half to wait. 
The bhoys laid a hould av their rifles an’ some 
thried to put their belts on; we was marchin’ 
wid fixed baynits av corse. Thin we knew 
where Lungtungpen was; for we had hit the 
river-wall av it in the dhark, an’ the whole 
town blazed wid thim messin’ jingles an’ 
Sniders like a cat’s back on a frosty night. 
They was firin’ all ways at wanst; but over our 
beds into the shtrame. 

“ ‘Have you got your rifles?’ sez Brazenose. 
‘Got ’em!’ sez Orth’ris, ‘I’ve got that thief 
Mulvaney’s for all my back-pay, an’ she’ll 
kick my heart sick wid that blunderin’ long 
shtock av hers.’ ‘Go on!’ yells Brazenose, 
whippin’ his sword out. ‘Go on an’ take the 
town! An’ the Lord have mercy on our 
sowls!’ 

“Thin the bhoys gave wan divastatin’ howl, 
an’ pranced into the dhark, feelin’ for the 
town, an’ blindin’ an’ stiffin’ like cavalry 
ridin’ masters when the grass pricked their 
bare legs. I hammered wid the butt at some 
bamboo things that -felt wake, an’ the rast 
came an’ hammered contagious, while the 
jingles was jingling, an’ feroshus yells from 
inside was shplittin’ our ears. We was too 
close under the wall for them to hurt us. 

“Evenshually, the thing, whatever ut was, 


126 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


bruk; an’ the six and twinty av us tumbled, 
wan afther the other, naked as we was borrun, 
into the town of Lungtungpen. There was a 
melly av a sumpshus kind for a whoile; but 
whether they tuk us, all white an' wet, for a 
new breed av divil, or a new kind av dacoit, I 
don’t know. They ran as though we was 
both, an’ we wint into thim, baynit an’ butt, 
shriekin’ wid laughin. ’ There was torches in 
the shtreets, an’ I saw little Orth’ris rubbin’ 
his showlther ivry time he loosed my long- 
shtock Martini; an’ Brazenose walkin’ into the 
gang wid his sword, like Diarmid av the 
Golden Collar — barring he hadn’t a stich av 
clothin’ on him. We diskivered elephints wid 
dacoits under their bellies, an’, what wid wan 
thing an’ another, we was busy till morning 
takin’ possession av the town of Lungtung- 
pen. 

“Thin we halted an’ formed up, the wimmen 
howlin’ in the houses an’ Lift’nint Brazenose 
blushin’ pink in the light av the mornin’ sun. 
’Twas the most ondasint p’rade I iver tuk a 
hand in. Foive and twenty privits an’ a 
orficer av the line in review ordher, an’ not as 
much as wud dust a fife betune ’em all in the 
way of clothin’ ! Eight av us had their belts 
and pouches on ; but the rest had gone in wid 
a handful av cartridges an’ the skin God gave 
him. They was as nakid as Vanus. 

“ ‘Number off from the right!’ sez the 
lift’nint. ‘Odd numbers fall out to dress; 
even numbers pathrol the town till relieved by 
the dressing party. ’ Let me tell you, pathrol- 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 127 


lin’ a town wid nothing- on is an expayrience. 
I pathrolled for tin minutes, an’ begad, before 
’twas over, I blushed. The women laughed 
so. I never blushed before or since; but I 
blushed all over my carkiss thin. Orth’ris 
didn’t pathrol. He sez only: ‘Portsmouth 
Barricks an’ the 'Ard av a Sunday!’ Thin he 
lay down an’ rowled anyways wid laughin’. 

“When we was all dhressed, we counted the 
dead — sivinty-foive dacoits besides wounded. 
We tuk five elephints, a hunder’ an’ sivinty 
Sniders, two hunder’ daks, and a lot av other 
burglarious thruck. Not a man av us was 
hurt — excep’ may be the lift’nint, an’ he from 
the shock to his dacincy. 

“The headman av Lungtungpen, who sur- 
rinder’d himself, asked the interprut’r: ‘Av 
the English fight like that wid their clo’es off, 
what in the wurruld do they do wid their 
clo’es on?’ Orth’ris began rowlin’ his eyes an’ 
crackin’ his fingers an’ dancin’ a step-dance for 
to impress the headman. He ran to his house; 
an’ we spint the rest av the. day carry in’ the 
lift’nint on our showlthers round the town, an’ 
playin’ wid the Burmese babies — fat, little, 
brown little divils, as pretty as pictures. 

“Whin I was inviladed for the dysentry to 
India, I sez to the lift’nint: ‘Sorr,’ sez I, 
‘you’ve the makin’s in you av a great man; 
but, av you’ll let an ould sodger spake, you’re 
too fond of the-ourizin’.’ He shuk hands wid 
me and sez: ‘Hit high, hit low, there’s no 
plasin’ you, Mulvaney. You’ve seen me 
waltzin’ through Lungtungpen like a red Injin 


128 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


widout the war-paint, an’ you say I’m too fond 
av the-ourizin’?’ ‘Sorr, ’ sez I, for I loved the 
bhoy; ‘I wud waltz wid you in that condishin 
through hell, an’ so wud the rest av the men!’ 
Thin I wint down the shtrame in the flat an* 
left him my plessin’. May the saints carry ut 
where ut shud go, for he was a fine upstandin’ 
young officer. 

“Toreshume! Fwhat I’ve said jist shows 
the use av three-year-olds. Wud fifty sea- 
soned sodgers have taken Lungtungpen in the 
dark that way? No! they’d know the risk av 
fever and chill. Let alone the shoo tin’. Two 
hundher’ might have done ut. But the three- 
year-olds know little an’ care less; an’ where 
there’s no fear, there’s no danger. Catch 
them young, feed them high, an’ by the honor 
av that great little man Bobs, behind a good 
orficer t’isn’t only dacoits they’d smash wid 
their clo’es off — tis Con-ti-nental Ar-r-r-mies ! 
They tuk Lundtungpen nakid; an they’d take 
St. Pethersburg in their dhrawers! Begad, 
they would that! 

“Here’s your pipe, sorr! Shmoke her tin- 
derly wid honey-dew, afther letting the reek 
av the canteen plug die away. But ’tis no good, 
thanks to you all the same, fillin’ my pouch 
wid your chopped bhoosa. Canteen baccy’s 
like the army. It shpoils a man’s taste for 
moilder things.’’ 

So saying, Mulvaney took up his butterfly 
net, and returned to barracks. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 129 


A GERM DESTROYER. 

Pleasant it is for the Little Tin Gods 
When great Jove nods; 

But Little Tin Gods make their little mistakes 

In missing the hour when great Jove wakes. 

As a general rule, it is inexpedient to meddle 
with questions of state in a land where men 
are highly paid to work them out for you. 
This tale is a justifiable exception. 

Once in every five years, you know, we in- 
dent for a new viceroj^; and each viceroy 
imports, with the rest of his baggage, a private 
secretary, who may or may not be the real 
viceroy, just as fate ordains. Fate looks after 
the Indian Empire because it is so big and 
so helpless. 

There was a viceroy once, who brought out 
with him a turbulent private secretary — a hard 
man with a soft manner and a morbid passion 
for work. This secretary was called Wonder 
— John Fennil Wonder. The viceroy pos- 
sessed no name — nothing but a string of coun- 
ties and two-thirds of the alphabet after them. 
Fie said, in confidence, that he was the electro- 
plated figurehead of a golden administration, 
and he watched in a dreamy, amused way 
Wonder’s attempts to draw matters which 
were entirely outside his province into his own 

9 


130 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


hands. “When we are all cherubims to- 
gether,” said his excellency once, “my dear, 
good friend Wonder will head the conspiracy 
for plucking out Gabriel’s tail-feathers or steal- 
ing Peter’s keys. Then I shall report him.” 

But, though the viceroy did nothing to check 
Wonder’s officiousness, other people said un- 
pleasant things. May be the members of 
council began it; but finally, all Simla agreed 
that there was “too much Wonder, and too 
little viceroy,” in that regime. Wonder was 
always quoting “his excellency.” It was 
“his excellency this,” “his excellency that,” 
“in the opinion of his excellency,” and so on. 
The viceroy smiled; but he did not heed. He 
said that, so long as his old men squabbled 
with his “dear, good Wonder,” they might be 
induced to leave them “Imemorial East” in 
peace. 

“No wise man has a policy,” said the vice- 
roy. “A policy is the blackmail levied on the 
fool by the unforeseen. I am not the former, 
and I do not believe in the latter.” 

I do not quite see what this means, unless it 
refers to an insurance policy. Perhaps it was 
the viceroy’s way of saying: “Lie low.” 

That season came up to Simla one of these 
crazy people with only a single idea. These 
are the men who make things move ; but they 
are not nice to talk to. This man’s name was 
Mellish, and he had lived for fifteen years on 
land of his own, in Lower Bengal, studying 
cholera. He held that cholera was a germ 
that propagated itself as it flew through a 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 131 


atmosphere ; and stuck in the branches 
of trees like a woolflake. The germ could be 
rendered sterile, he said, by “Mellish’s Own 
Invincible Fumigatory” — a heavy violet-black 
powder — “the result of fifteen years* scientific 
investigation, sir!’* 

Inventors seem very much alike as a caste. 
They talk loudly, especially about “conspir- 
acies of monopolists;’’ they beat upon the table 
with their fists; and they secrete fragments 
of their inventions about their persons. 

Mellish said that there was a medical “ring’’ 
at Simla, headed by the surgeon-general, who 
was in league, apparently, with all the hospi- 
tal assistants in the empire. I forget exactly 
how he proved it, but it had something to do 
with “skulking up to the Hills;’* and what 
Mellish wanted was the independent evidence 
of the viceroy — “Steward of our most gracious 
majesty the Queen, sir. ’’ So Mellish went up 
to Simla, with eighty-four pounds of fumiga- 
tory in his trunk, to speak to the viceroy and 
to show him the merits of the invention. 

But it is easier to see a viceroy than to talk 
to him, unless you chance to be as important as 
Mellishe of Madras. He was a six-thousand- 
rupee man, so great that his daughters never 
“married.’’ They “contracted alliances.’’ 
He himself was not paid. He “received 
emoluments,’’ and his journeys about the 
country were “tours of observation.’’ His 
business was to stir up the people in Madras 
with a long pole — as you stir up tench in a pond 
— and the people had to come up out of their 


132 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


comfortable old ways and gasp: “This is en- 
lightenment and progress. Isn’t it fine !’* Then 
they gave Mellish statues and jasmine gar- 
lands in the hope of getting rid of him. 

Mellish came up to Simla “to confer with 
the viceroy. ’ * That was one of his perquisites. 
The viceroy knew nothing of Mellishe except 
that he was “one of those middle-class deities 
who seem necessary to the spiritual comfort 
of this paradise of the middle-classes,” and 
that, in all probability, he had “suggested, 
designed, founded, and endowed all the public 
institutions in Madras. ’ ’ Which proves that 
his excellency, though dreamy, had experience 
of the ways of six-thousand rupee men. 

Mellishe’s name was E. Mellishe, and Mel- 
lish ’s was E. S. Mellish, and they were both 
staying at the same hotel, and the fate that 
looks after the Indian Empire ordained that 
Wonder should blunder and drop the final “e,” 
that the chaprassi should help him, and that 
the note which fan: “Dear Mr. Mellish. — 
Can you set aside your other engagements, 
and lunch with us at two to-morrow? His 
excellency has an hour at your disposal then,” 
should be given to Mellish with the fumiga- 
tory. He nearly wept with pride and delight, 
and at the appointed hour cantered to Peter- 
hoff, a big paper-bag full of the fumigatory in 
his coat-tail pockets. He had his chance, and 
he meant to make the most of it. Mellishe of 
Madras had been so portentously solemn about 
his “conference,” that Wonder had arranged 
for a private tiffin — no A.-D.-C. ’s, no Won- 


PLAIN. TALES FROM THE HILLS. 133 

der, no one but the viceroy, who said plain- 
tively that he feared being left alone with 
unmuzzled autocrats like the great Mellishe 
of Madras. 

But his guest did not bore the viceroy. On 
the contrary, he amused him. Mellish was 
nervously anxious to go straight to his fumig- 
atory, and talked at random until tiffin was 
over and his excellency asked him to smoke. 
The viceroy was pleased with Mellish because 
he did not talk “shop." 

As soon as the cheroots were lit, Mellish 
spoke like a man ; beginning with his cholera 
theory, reviewing his fifteen years’ “scientific 
labors," the machinations of the “Simla 
Ring," and the excellence of his fumigatory, 
while the viceroy watched him between half- 
shut eyes and thought: “Evidently, this is the 
wrong tiger; but it is an original animal." 
Mellish’s hair was standing on end with ex- 
citement, and he stammered. He began 
groping in his coat-tails, and, before the vice- 
roy knew what was about to happen, he had 
tipped a bagful of his powder into the big 
silver ash-tray. 

“J-j-judge for yourself, sir," said Mellish. 
“Y’ excellency shall judge for yourself! Ab- 
solutely infallible, on my honor." 

He plunged the lighted end of his cigar into 
the powder, which began to smoke like a vol- 
cano, and send up fat, greasy wreaths of 
copper-colored smoke. In five seconds the 
room was filled with a most pungent and 
sickening stench — a reek that took fierce hold 


134 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


of the trap of your windpipe and shut it. The 
powder then hissed and fizzed, and sent out 
blue and green sparks, and the smoke rose till 
you could neither see, nor breathe, nor gasp. 
Mellish, however, was used to it. 

“Nitrate of strontia,“he shouted; “baryta, 
bonemeal, etcetera! Thousand cubic feet 
smoke per cubic inch. Not a germ could live 
— not a germ, y’ excellency!” 

But his excellency had fled, and was cough- 
ing at the foot of the stairs, while all Peterhoff 
hummed like a hive. Red Lancers came in, 
and the head chaprassi, who speaks English, 
came in, and mace-bearers came in, and ladies 
ran downstairs screaming, “fire”; for the 
smoke was drifting through the house and ooz- 
ing out of the windows, and bellying along the 
verandas, and wreathing and writhing across 
the gardens. No one could enter the room 
where Hellish was lecturing on his fumigatory 
till that unspeakable powder had burned itself 
out. 

Then an aide-de-camp, who desired the V. 
C., rushed through the rolling clouds and 
hauled Hellish into the hall. The viceroy 
was prostrate with laughter, and could only 
waggle his hands feebly at Hellish, who was 
shaking a fresh bagful of powder at him. 

“Glorious! Glorious!” sobbed his excel- 
lency. “Not a germ, as you justly observe, 
could exist! lean swear it. A magnificent 
success!” 

Then he laughed till the tears came, and 
Wonder, who had caught the real Hellishe 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 135 


snorting on the Mall, entered and was deeply 
shocked at the scene. But the viceroy was 
delighted, because he saw that Wonder would 
presently depart. Hellish with the fumigatory 
was also pleased, for he felt that he had 
smashed the Simla medical “ring.” 

:ic % ^ % 

Few men could tell a story like his excellency 
when he took the trouble, and the account of 
“my dear, good Wonder’s friend with the 
powder, “went the round of Simla, and flip- 
pant folk made Wonder unhappy by their 
remarks. 

But his excellency told the tale once too 
often — for Wonder, as he meant to do. It was 
at a Seepee picnic. Wonder was sitting just 
behind the viceroy. 

“And I really thought for a moment,” 
wound up his excellency, “that my dear good 
Wonder had hired an assassin to clear his way 
to the throne. ” 

Every one laughed ; but there was a delicate 
subtinkle in the viceroy’s tone which Wonder 
understood. He found that his health was 
giving wa)^; and the viceroy allowed him to 
go, and presented him with a flaming “char- 
acter” for use at home among big people. 

“My fault entirely,” said his excellency, in 
after seasons, with a twinkling in his eye. 
“My inconsistency must always have been 
distasteful to such a masterly man.” 


186- PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


KIDNAPPED. 

There is a tide in the affairs of men. 

Which, taken any way you please, is bad. 

And strands them in forsaken guts and creeks 
No decent soul would think of visiting. 

You cannot stop the tide ; but now and then. 

You may arrest some rash adventurer 

Who— h’m — will hardly thank you for your pains. 

— Vibart’s Moralities. 

We are a high caste and enlightened race, 
and infant-marriage is very shocking, and the 
consequences are sometimes peculiar ; but 
nevertheless the Hindu notion — which is the 
continental notion, which is the aboriginal 
notion — of arranging marriages irrespective of 
the personal inclinations of the married is 
sound. Think for a minute, and you will see 
that it must be so; unless, of course, you 
believe in “affinities.” In which case you had 
better not read this tale. How can a man 
who has never married, who cannot be trusted 
to pick up at sight a moderately sound horse, 
whose head is hot and upset with visions 
of domestic 'felicity, go about the choosing 
of a wife? He cannot see straight or think 
straight if he tries; and the same disadvant- 
ages exist in the case of a girl’s fancies. But 
when mature, married and discreet people 
arrange a match between a boy and a girl. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 13T 


they do it sensibly, with a view to the future, 
and the young couple live happily ever after> 
ward. As everybody knows. 

Properly speaking, government should 
establish a matrimonial department, efficiently 
officered, with a jury of matrons, a judge of 
the chief court, a senior chaplain, and an 
awful warning, in the shape of a love-match 
that has gone wrong, chained to the, trees in 
the courtyard. All marriages should be made 
through the department, which might be sub- 
ordinate to the educational department, under 
the same penalty as that attaching to the trans- 
fer of land without a stamped document. But 
government won’t take suggestions. It pre- 
tends that it is too busy. However, I will put 
my notion on record, and explain the example 
that illustrates the theory. 

Once upon a time there was a good young" 
man — a first-class officer in his own depart- 
ment — a man with a career before him, and, 
possibly, a K. C. I. E. at the end of it. All 
his superiors spoke well of him, because he 
knew how to hold his tongue and his pen at 
the proper times. There are to-day only 
eleven men in India who possess this secret; 
and they have all, with one exception, attained 
great honor and enormous incomes. 

This good young man was quiet and self- 
contained — too old for his years by far. 
Which always carries its own punishment. 
Had a subaltern, or a tea-planter’s assistant, 
or anybody who enjoys life and has no care 
for to-morrow, done what he tried to do not 


138 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


a soul would have cared. But when Pey- 
throppe — the estimable, virtuous, economical, 
quiet, hard-working, young Peythroppe — fell, 
there was a flutter through five departments. 

The manner of his fall was in this way. He 
met a Miss Castries — d’Castries it was orig- 
inally, but the family dropped the d’ for 
administrative reasons — and he fell in love 
with her even more energetically than he 
worked. Understand clearly that there was 
not a breath of a word to be said against Miss 
Castries — not a shadow of a breath. She was 
good and very lovely — possessed what in- 
nocent people at home call a “Spanish” 
complexion, with thick blue-black hair grow- 
ing low down on the forehead, into a “widow’s 
peak,” and big violet eyes under eyebrows as 
black and as straight as the borders of a 
Gazette Extraordinary, when a big man dies. 
But — but — but — Well, she was a very 
sweet girl and very pious, but for many rea- 
sons she was “impossible.” Quite so. All 
good mammas know what “impossible” 
means. It was obviously absurd that Pey- 
throppe should marry her. The little opal- 
tinted onyx at the base of her finger-nails said 
this as plainly as print. Further, marriage 
with Miss Castries meant marriage with sev- 
eral other Castries — Honorar}^ Lieutenant 
Casteries her papa, Mrs. Eulalie Castries her 
mamma, and all the ramifications of the Cas- 
tries family, on incomes ranging from Rs. 175 
to Rs. 470 a month, and their wives and con- 
nections again. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 139 


It would have been cheaper for Peythroppe 
to have assaulted a commissioner with a dog- 
whip, or to have burned the records of a deputy 
commissioner’s office, than to have contracted 
an alliance with the Castries. It would have 
weighted his after-career less — even under a 
government which never forgets and never 
forgives. Everybody saw this but Peythroppe. 
He was going to marry Miss Castries, he was — 
being of age and drawing a good income — 
and woe betide the house that would not after- 
ward receive Mrs. Virginie Saulez Peythroppe 
with the deference due to her husband’s rank. 
That was Peythroppe’s ultimatum, and any 
remonstrance drove him frantic. 

These sudden madnesses most afflict the 
sanest men. There was a case once — but I 
will tell you of that later on. You cannot 
account for the mania, except under a theory 
directly contradicting the one about the place 
wherein marriages are made. Peythroppe 
was burningly anxious to put a mill-stone 
round his neck at the outset of his career; and 
argument had not the least effect on him. He 
was going to marry Miss Castries, and the 
business was his own business. He would 
thank you to keep your advice to yourself. 
With a man in this condition, mere words only 
fix him in his purpose. Of course he cannot 
see that marriage out here does not concern 
the individual but the government he serves. 

Do you remember Mrs. Hauksbee — the most 
wonderful woman in India? She saved Pluffles 


140 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


from Mrs. Reiver, won Tarrion his appoint- 
ment in the foreign office, and was defeated 
in open field by Mrs. Cusack- Bremmil. She 
heard of the lamentable condition of Pey- 
throppe, and her brain struck out the plan 
that saved him. She had the wisdom of the 
serpent, the logical coherence of the man, the 
fearlessness of the child, and the triple intui- 
tion of the woman. Never — no never — as 
long as a tonga buckets down the Solon dip, or 
the couples go-a-riding at the back of Summer 
Hill, will there be such a genius as Mrs. 
Hauksbee. She attended the consultation of 
three men on Peythroppe’s case; and she 
stood up with the lash of her riding whip 
between her lips and spake. 

Three weeks later, Peythroppe dined with 
the three men, and the Gazette of India came 
in. Peythroppe found to his surprise that he 
had been gazetted a month’s leave. Don’t 
ask me how this was managed. I believe 
firmly that if Mrs. Hauksbee gave the order, 
the whole Great Indian Administration would 
stand on its head. The three men had also a 
month’s leave each. Peythroppe put the 
Gazette down and said bad words. Then 
there came from the compound the soft “pad- 
pad” of camels — “thieves’ camels,” the bik- 
aneer breed that don’t bubble and howl when 
they sit down and get up. 

After that I don’t known what happened. 
This much is certain. Peythroppe disap- 
peared — vanished like smoke — and the long 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 141 


foot-rest chair in the house of the three men 
was broken to splinters. Also a bedstead 
departed from one of the bedrooms. 

Mrs. Hauksbee said that Mr. Peythroppe 
was shooting in Rajputana with the three 
men ; so we were compelled to believe her. 

At the end of the month, Peythroppe was 
gazetted twenty days’ extension of leave ; but 
there was wrath and lamentation in the house 
of Castries. The marriage-day had been fixed, 
but the bridegroom never came ; and the 
D’ Silvas, Pereiras and Ducketts lifted their 
voices and mocked Honorary Lieutenant 
Castries as one .who had been basely imposed 
upon. Mrs. Hauksbee went to the wedding, 
and was much astonished when Peythroppe 
did not appear. After seven weeks, Pey- 
throppe and the three men returned from Raj- 
putana. Peythroppe was in hard, tough con- 
dition, rather white, and more self-contained 
than ever. 

One of the three men had a cut on his nose, 
caused by the kick of a gun. Twelve-bores 
kick rather curiously. 

Then came Honorary Lieutenant Castries, 
seeking for the blood of his perfidious son-in- 
law to be. He said things — vulgar and 
“impossible” things, which showed the raw 
rough “ranker” below the “honorary,” and I 
fancy Peythroppe 's eyes were opened. Any- 
how, he held his peace till the end, when he 
spoke briefly. Honorary Lieutenant Castries 
asked for a “peg” before he went away to die 
or bring a suit for breach of promise. 


142 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Miss Castries was a very good girl. She said 
that she would have no breach of promise 
suits. She said that, if she was not a lady, 
she was refined enough to know that ladies 
kept their broken hearts to themselves; and, 
as she ruled her parents, nothing happened. 
Later on, she married a most respectable and 
gentlemanly person. He traveled for an 
enterprising firm in Calcutta, and was all that 
a good husband should be. 

So Peythroppe came to his right mind again, 
and did much good work, and was honored by 
all who knew him. One of these days he will 
marry; but he will marry a §weet pink-and- 
white maiden, on the Government House list, 
with a little money and some influential con- 
nections, as every wise man should. And he 
will never, all his life, tell her what happened 
during the seven weeks of his shooting tour in 
Rajputana. 

But just think how much trouble and 
expense — for camel hire is not cheap, and 
those bikaneer brutes had to be fed like 
humans — might have been saved by a properly 
conducted matrimonial department, under the 
control of the director-general of education, 
but corresponding direct with the viceroy. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 143 


THE ARREST OF LIEUTENANT 
GOLIGHTLY. 

T’ve forgotten the countersign,’ sez ’e. 

‘Oh! You ’ave, ’ave you,’ sez 1. 

‘But I’m the colonel,’ sez ’e. 

‘Oh! You are, are you,’ sez 1. ‘Colonel nor no Col- 
onel, you waits ’ere till I’m relieved, an’ the Sarjint 
reports on your ugly old mug. Coop !’ sez I. 

An’ s’elp me soul, ’twas the Colonel after all ! But I 
was a recruity then.” — The Unedited Autobiography of 
Private Ortheris. 

If there was one thing on which Golightly 
prided himself more than another, it was 
looking like “an officer and a gentleman.” 
He said it was for the honor of the service that 
he attired himself so elaborately ; but those 
who knew him best said that it was just per- 
sonal vanity. There was no harm about 
Golightly — not an ounce. He recognized a 
horse when he saw one, and could do more 
than fill a cantle. He played a very fair game 
at billiards, and was a sound man at the whist 
table. Every one liked him ; and nobody ever 
dreamed of seeing him handcuffed on a station 
platform as a deserter. But this sad thing 
happened. 

He was going down from Dalhousie, at the 
end of his leave — riding down. He had cut 


144 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


liis leave as fine as he dared, and wanted to 
come down in a hurry. 

It was fairly warm at Dalhousie, and know- 
ing what to expect below, he descended in a 
new khaki suit — tight-fitting — of a delicate 
olive-green; a peacock-blue tie, white collar, 
and a snowy white solah helmet. He prided- 
himself on looking neat even when he was 
riding post. He did look neat, and he was so 
deeply concerned about his appearance before 
he started that he quite forgot to take anything 
but some small change with him. He left all 
his notes at the hotel. His servants had gone 
down the road before him, to be ready in 
waiting at Pathankote with a change of gear. 
That was what he called traveling in “light 
marching order. “ He was proud of his fac- 
ulty of organization — what we call bundobust. 

Twenty-two miles out of Dalhousie it began 
to rain — not a mere hill-shower, but a good, 
tepid monsoonish downpour. Golightly 
bustled on, wishing that he had brought an 
umbrella. The dust on the roads turned into 
mud, and the pony mired a good deal. So 
did Golightly’s khaki gaiters. But he kept on 
steadily and tried to think how pleasant the 
coolth was. 

His next pony was rather a brute at start- 
ing, and Golightly’s hands being slippery with 
the rain, contrived to get rid of Golightly at a 
corner. He chased the animal, caught it, and 
went ahead briskly. The spill had not im- 
proved his clothes or his temper, and he had 
lost one spur. He kept the other one em- 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


145 


ployed. By the time that stage was ended, 
the pony had had as much exercise as he 
wanted, and, in spite of the rain. Golightly 
was sweating freely. At the end of another 
miserable half-hour Golightly found the world 
disappear before his eyes in clammy pulp. 
The rain had turned the pith of his huge and 
snowy solah- topee into an evil- smelling dough, 
and it had closed on his head like a half-opened 
mushroom. Also the green lining was begin- 
ning to run. 

Golightly did not say anything worth record- 
ing here. He tore off and squeezed up as 
much of the brim as was in his eyes and plowed 
on. The back of the helmet was flapping on 
his neck and the sides stuck to his ears, but the 
leather band and green lining kept things 
roughly together, so that the hat did not actu- 
ally melt away where it flapped. 

Presently the pulp and the green stuff made 
a sort of slimy mildew which ran over Golightly 
in several directions — down his back and 
bosom for choice. The khaki color ran too — 
it was really shockingly bad dye — and sections 
or Golightly were brown, and patches were 
violet, and contours were ochre, and streaks 
were ruddy red, and blotches were nearly 
white, according to the nature and peculiari- 
ties of the dye. When he took out his hand- 
kerchief to wipe his face and the green of the 
hat -lining and the purple stuff that had soaked 
through on to his neck from the tie became 
thoroughly mixed, the effect was amazing. 

Near Dhar the rain stopped and the evening 


146 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


sun came out and dried him up slightly. It 
fixed the colors too. Three miles from Path- 
ankote the last pony fell dead lame, and 
Golightly was forced to walk. He pushed on 
into Pathankote to find his servants. He did 
not know then that his khitmatgar had stopped 
by the roadside to get drunk, and would come 
on the next day, saying that he had sprained 
his ankle. When he got into Pathankote, he 
couldn’t find his servants, his boots were stiff 
and ropy wdth mud, and there were large 
quantities of dirt about his body. The blue 
tie had run as much as the khaki. So he took 
it off with the collar and threw it away. Then 
he said something about servants generally 
and tried to get a peg. He paid eight annas 
for the drink, and this revealed to him that he 
had only six annas more in his pocket — or in 
the world as he stood at that hour. 

He went to the station-master to negotiate 
for a first-class ticket to Khasa, where he was 
stationed. The booking-clerk said somethings 
to the station-master, the station-master said 
something to the telegraph clerk, and the three 
looked at him with curiosity. They asked him 
to wait for half an hour, while they telegraphed 
toUmritsar for authority. So he waited and 
four constables came and grouped themselves 
picturesquely round him. Just as he was pre- 
paring to ask them to go away, the station-mas- 
ter said that he would give the sahib a ticket to 
Umritsar, if the sahib would kindly come inside 
the booking-office. Golightly stepped inside, 
and the next thing he knew was that a con- 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


147 


Stable was attached to each of his legs and 
arms, while the station-master was trying to 
cram a mail-bag over his head. 

There was a very fair scuffle all round the 
booking-office, and Golightly received a nasty 
cut over his eye through falling against a table. 
But the constables were too much for him, and 
they and the station-master handcuffed him 
securely. As soon as the mail-bag was slipped, 
he began expressing his opinions, and the 
head constable said: “Without doubt this is 
the soldier- Englishman we required. Listen 
to the abuse!” Then Golightly asked the sta- 
tion-master what the this and the that the pro- 
ceedings meant. The station-master told him 
he was “Private John Binkle of the — Regi- 
ment, five feet nine inches, fair hair, gray eyes, 
and a dissipated appearance, no marks on the 
body,” who had deserted a fortnight ago. 
Golightly began explaining at great length; 
and the more he explained the less the station- 
master believed him. He said that no lieu- 
tenant could look such a ruffian as did Go- 
lightly, and that his instructions were to send 
his capture under proper escort to Umritsar. 
Golightly was feeling very damp and uncom- 
fortable, and the language he used was not fit 
for publication, even in an expurgated form. 
The four constables saw him safe to Umritsar 
in an “intermediate” compartment, and he 
spent the four-hour journey in abusing them 
as fluently as his knowledge of the vernaculars 
allowed. 

At Umritsar he was bundled out on the 


148 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


platform into the arms of a corporal and two 

men of the Regiment. Golightly drew 

himself up and tried to carry off matters jaun- 
tily. He did not feel too jaunty in handcuffs, 
with four constables behind him, and the blood 
from the cut on his forehead stiffening on his 
left cheek. The corporal was not jocular 
either. Golightly got as far as: “This is a 
very absurd mistake, my men.” when the 
corporal told him to “stow his lip” and come 
along. Golightly did not want to come along. 
He desired to stop and explain. He explained 
very well, indeed, until the corporal cut in 
with: “You a orficer! It’s the like o’ you as 
brings disgrace on the likes of us. Bloomin’ 
fine orficer you are ! I know your regiment. 
The Rogue’s March is the quickstep where 
you come from. You’re a black shame to the 
service. ” 

Golightly kept his temper, and began ex- 
plaining all over again from the beginning. 
Then he was marched out of the rain into the 
refreshment-room and told not to make a qual- 
ified fool of himself. The men were going to 
run him up to Fort Govindghar. And “run- 
ning up” is a performance almost as undigni- 
fied as the Frog March. 

Golightly was nearly hysterical with rage 
and the chill and the mistake and the handcuffs 
and the headache that the cut on his forehead 
had given him. He really laid himself out to 
express what was in his mind. When he had 
quite finished and his throat was feeling dry, 
one of the men said: “I’ve ’eard a few beg- 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


149 


gars in the click blind, stiff and crack on a bit ; 
but I’ve never ’eard any one to touch this ere 
‘orficer. ’ ” They were not angry with him. 
They rather admired him. They had some 
beer at the refreshment-room, and offered Go- 
lightly some, too, because he had “swore 
won’erful. They asked him to tell them all 
about the adventures of Private John Binkle 
while he was loose on the countryside; and 
that made Golightly wilder than ever. If he 
had kept his wits about him he would have 
kept quiet until an officer came; but he at- 
tempted to run. 

Now the butt of a Martini in the small of 
your back hurts a great deal, and rotten, rain- 
soaked khaki tears easily when two men are 
jerking at your collar. 

Golightly rose from the floor feeling very 
sick and giddy, with his shirt ripped open all 
down his breast and nearly all down his back. 
He yielded to his luck, and at that point the 
down-train from Lahore came in carrying one 
of Golightly’s majors. 

This is the major’s evidence in full: 

“There was the sound of a scuffle in the 
second-class refreshment-room, so I went in 
and saw the most villainous loafer that I ever 
set eyes on. His boots and breeches were 
plastered with mud and beer-stains. He wore 
a muddy-white dunghill sort of thing on his 
head, and it hung down in slips on his shoul- 
ders which were a good deal scratched. He was 
half in and half out of a shirt as nearly in two 
pieces as it could be, and he was begging the 


150 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


guard to look at the name on the tail of it. As 
he had rucked the shirt all over his head I 
couldn’t at first see who he was, but I fancied 
that he was a man in the first stage of D. T. 
from the way he swore while he wrestled with 
his rags. When he turned round, and I had 
made allowance for a lump as big as a pork-pie 
over one eye and some green war-paint on the 
face, and some violet stripes round the neck, I 
saw that it was Golightly. He was very glad 
to see me,” said the major, “and he hoped I 
would not tell the mess about it. I didn’t, but 
you can, if you like, now that Golightly has 
gone home. ” 

Golightly spent the greater part of that sum- 
mer in trying to get the corporal and the two 
soldiers tried by court-martial for arresting an 
“officer and a gentleman.” They were, of 
course, very sorry for their error. But the 
tale leaked into the regimental canteen, and 
thence ran about the province. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 151 


IN THE HOUSE OF SUDDHOO. 

A stone’s throw out on either hand 
From the well-ordered road we tread, 

And all the world is wild and strange ; 

Churel and ghoul and Djinn and sprite 
Shall bear us company to-night, 

For we have reached the Oldest Land 
Wherein the Powers of Darkness range. 

— From the Dusk to the Dawn. 

The house of Suddhoo, near the Taksali 
Gate is two-storied, with four carved windows 
of old brown wood, and a flat roof. You may 
recognize it by five red hand-prints arranged 
like the five of diamonds on the whitewash 
between the upper windows. Bhagwan Dass, 
the bunnia, and a man who says he gets his liv- 
ing by seal-cutting, live in the lower story with 
a troop of wives, servants, friends, and retain- 
ers. The two upper rooms used to be occu- 
pied by Janoo and Azizun and a little black- 
and-tan terrier that was stolen from an 
Englishman’s house and given to Janoo by a 
soldier. To-day, only Janoo lives in the upper 
rooms. Suddhoo sleeps on the roof generally, 
except when he sleeps in the street. He used 
to go to Peshawar in the cold weather to visit 
his son, who sells curiosities near the Edwardes’ 
Gate, and then he slept under a real mud roof. 
Suddhoo is a great friend of mine, because his 


152 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


cousin had a son who secured, thanks to mjr 
recommendation, the post of head-messenger 
to a big firm in the station. Suddhoo says that 
God will make me a lieutenant-governor one 
of these days. I dare say his prophecy will 
come true. He is very, very old, with white 
hair and no teeth worth showing, and he has 
outlived his Wits — outlived nearly everything 
except his fondness for his son at Peshawar. 
Janoo and Azizun are Kashmiris, ladies of the 
city, and theirs was an ancient and more or 
less honorable profession ; but Azizun has since 
married a medical student from the northwest 
and has settled down to a most respectable life 
somewhere near Bareilly. Bhagwan Dass is 
an extortionate and an adulterator. He ic 
very rich. The man who is supposed to get 
his living by seal-cutting pretends to be very 
poor. This lets you know as much as is 
necessary of the four principal tenants in the 
house of Suddhoo. Then there is me, of 
course; but I am only the chorus that comes in 
at the end to explain things. So I do not 
count. Suddhoo was not clever. The man 
who pretended to cut seals was the cleverest 
of them all — Bhagwan Dass only knew how ta 
lie — except Janoo. She was also beautiful, but 
that was her own affair. 

Suddhoo’s son at Peshawar was attacked by 
pleurisy, and old Suddhoo was troubled. The 
seal-cutter man heard of Suddhoo’s anxiety and 
made capital out of it. He was abreast of the 
times. He got a friend in Peshawar to tele- 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 153 

graph daily accounts of his son’s health. And 
here the story begins. 

Suddhoo’s cousin’s son told me, one evening, 
that Suddhoo wanted to see me ; that he was 
too old and feeble to come personally, and 
that I should be conferring an everlasting 
honor on the house of Suddhoo if I went to 
him. I went; but I think, seeing how well 
off Suddhoo was then, that he might have sent 
something better than an ekka^ which jolted 
fearfully, to haul out a future lieutenant-gov- 
ernor to the city on a muggy April evening. 
The ekka did not run quickly. It was full dark 
when we pulled up opposite the door of Ranjit 
Singh's Tomb near the main gate of the fort. 
Here was Suddhoo and he said that, by reason 
of my condescension, it was ab.^^olutely certain 
that I should become a lieutenant-governor 
while my hair was yet black. Then we talked 
about the weather and the state of my health, 
and the wheat crops, for fifteen minutes, in the 
Huzuri Bagh, under the stars. 

Suddhoo came to the point at last. He said 
that Janoo had told him that there was an 
order of the sirkar against magic, because it 
was feared that magic might one day kill the 
Empress of India. I didn’t know anything 
about the state of the law; but I fancied that 
something interesting was going to happen. I 
said that so far from magic being discouraged 
by the government it was highly commended. 
The greatest officials of the state practiced it 
themselves. (If the financial statement isn’t 
magic, I don’t know what is.) Then, to 


154 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


encourage him further, I said that, if there was 
any jadoo afoot, I had not the least objection 
to giving it my countenance and sanction, and 
to seeing that it was jadoo — white magic, 

as distinguished from the unclean which 
kills folk. It took a long time before Suddhoo 
admitted that this was just what he had asked 
me to come for. Then he told me, in jerks 
and quavers, that the man who said he cut seals 
was a sorcerer of the cleanest kind ; that every 
day he gave Suddhoo news of the sick son in 
Peshawar more quickly than the lightning 
could fly, and that this news was always cor- 
roborated by the letters. Further, that he 
had told Suddhoo how a great danger was 
threatening his son, which could be removed 
by clean jadoo; and, of course, heavy pay- 
ment. I began to see exactly how the land 
lay, and told Suddhoo that I also understood 
a little jadoo in the Western line, and would 
go to his house to see that everything was done 
decently and in order. We set off together; 
and on the way Suddhoo told me that he had 
paid the seal-cutter between one hundred and 
two hundred rupees already ; and the jadoo of 
that night would cost two hundred more. 
Which was cheap, he said, considering the 
greatness of his son’s danger; but 1 do not 
think he meant it. 

The lights were all cloaked in the front of 
the house when we arrived. I could hear 
awful noises from behind the seal-cutter’s shop 
front, as if some one were groaning his soul 
out. Suddhoo shook all over, and while we 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 155 


groped our way upstairs told me that \S\Qjadoo 
had begun. Janoo and Azizun met us at the 
stair head, and told us that the work was 
coming off in their rooms, because there was 
more space there. Janoo is a lady of a free- 
thinking turn of mind. She whispered that 
the jadoo was an invention to get money out of 
Suddhoo, and that the seal-cutter would go to 
a hot place when he died. Suddhoo was nearly 
crying with fear and old age. He kept walk- 
ing up and down the room in the half Tight, 
repeating his son’s name over and over again, 
and asking Azizun if the seal-cutter ought not 
to make a reduction in the case of his own 
landlord. Janoo pulled me over to the shadow 
in the recess of the carved bow-windows. 
The boards were up, and the rooms were only 
lit by one tiny oil-lamp. There was no chance 
of my being seen if I stayed still. 

Presently, the groans below ceased, and we 
heard steps on the staircase. That was the 
seal-cutter. He stopped outside the door as 
the terrier barked and Azizun fumbled at the 
chain, and he told Suddhoo to blow out the 
lamp. This left the place m jet darkness, ex- 
cept for the red glow from the two huqas that 
belonged to Janoo and Azizun. The seal-cut- 
ter came in, and I heard Suddhoo throw him- 
self down on the floor and groan. Azizun 
caught her breath, and Janoo backed on to one 
of the beds with a shudder. There was a clink 
of something metallic, and then shot up a pale 
blue-green flame near the ground. The light 
was just enough to show Azizun, pressed 


166 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


against one corner of the room with the ter- 
rier between her knees; Janoo, with her hands 
clasped, leaning forward as she sat on the bed ; 
Suddhoo, face down, quivering, and the seal- 
cutter. 

I hope I may never see another man like 
that seal-cutter. He was stripped to the waist, 
with a wreath of white jasmine as thick as my 
wrist round his forehead, a salmon colored 
loin-cloth around his middle, and a steel 
bangle on each ankle. This was not awe- 
inspiring. It was the face of the man that 
turned me cold. It was blue-gray in the first 
place. In the second, the eyes were rolled 
back till you could only see the whites of 
them ; and in the third, the face was the face 
of a demon — a ghoul — anything you please 
except of the sleek, oily old ruffian, what sat in 
the daytime over his turning-lathe downstairs. 
He was lying on his stomach with his arms 
turned and crossed behind him, as if he had 
been thrown down pinioned. His head and 
neck were the only parts of him off the floor. 
They were nearly at right angles to the body, 
like the head of a cobra at spring. It was 
ghastly. In the center of the room, on the 
bare earth floor, stood a big, deep, brass basin, 
with a pale blue-green light floating in the 
center like a night-light. Round that basin 
the man on the floor wriggled himself three 
times. How he did it I do not know. I could 
see the muscles ripple along his spine and fall 
smooth again ; but I could not see any other 
motion. The head seemed the only thing 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS, 


157 


alive about him, except that slow curl and un- 
curl of the laboring back-muscles. Janoo from 
the bed was breathing seventy to the minute; 
Azizun held her hands before her eyes; and 
old Suddhoo, fingering at the dirt that had got 
into his white beard, was crying to himself. 
The horror of it was that the creeping, crawly 
thing made no sound — only crawled! And, 
remember, this lasted for ten minutes, while 
the terrier whined and Azizun shuddered, and 
Janoo gasped and Suddhoo cried. 

I felt the hair lift at the back of my head, 
and my heart thump like a thermantidote pad- 
dle. Luckily, the seal-cutter betrayed himself 
by his most impressive trick and made me calm 
again. After he had finished that unspeak- 
able triple crawl, he stretched his head away 
from the floor as high as he could, and sent out 
a jet of fire from his nostrils. Now I knew 
how fire-spouting is done — I can do it myself — 
so I felt at ease. The business was a fraud. 
If he had only kept to that crawl without try- 
ing to raise the effect, goodness knows what 
I might not have thought. Both the girls 
shrieked at the jet of fire and the head dropped, 
chin down, on the floor with a thud; the 
whole body lying then like a corpse with its 
arms trussed. There was a pause of five full 
minutes after this, and the blue-green flame 
died down. Janoo stooped to settle one of her 
anklets, while Azizun turned her face to the 
wall and took the terrier in her arms. Sud- 
dhoo put out an arm mechanically to Janoo’s 
huqa^ and she slid it across the floor with her 


158 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


foot. Directly above the body and on the wall, 
were a couple of flaming portraits, in stamped 
paper frames, of the queen and the Prince of 
Wales. They looked down on the perform- 
ance, and, to my thinking, seemed to heighten 
the grotesqueness of it all. 

Just when the silence was getting unendur- 
able, the body turned over and rolled away 
from the basin to the side of the room where 
it lay stomach-up. There was a faint “plop" 
from the basin — exactly like the noise a flsh 
makes when it takes a fly — and the green 
light in the center revived. 

I looked at the basin, and saw, bobbing in 
the water, the dried, shriveled, black head of 
a native baby — open eyes, open mouth and 
shaved scalp. It was worse, being so very sud- 
den, than the crawling exhibition. We had 
no time to say anything before it began to 
speak. 

Read Poe’s account of the voice that came 
from the mesmerized dying man, and you will 
realize less than one half of the horror of that 
head’s voice. 

There was an interval of a second or two 
between each word, and a sort of “ring, ring, 
ring," in the note of the voice, like the timbre 
of a bell. It pealed slowly, as if talking to 
itself, for several minutes before I got riS of 
my cold sweat. Then the blessed solution 
struck me. I looked at the body lying near 
the doorway, and saw, just where the hollow 
of the throat joins on the shoulders, a muscle 
that had nothing to do with any man’s regular 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


159 


breathing-, twitching away steadily. The 
whole thing was a careful reproduction of the 
Egyptian teraphin that one reads about some- 
times; and the voice was as clever and as 
appalling a piece of ventriloquism as one could 
wish to hear. All this time the head was 
“lip-lip-lapping” against the side of the basin, 
and speaking. It told Suddhoo, on his face 
again whining, of his son’s illness and of the 
state of the illness up to the evening of that 
very night. I always shall respect the seal-cut- 
ter for keeping so faithfully to the time of the 
Peshawar telegrams. It went on to say that 
skilled doctors were night and day watching 
over the man’s life; and that he would even- 
tually recover if the fee to the potent sorcerer, 
whose servant was the head in the basin, were 
doubled. 

Here the mistake from the artistic point of 
view came in. To ask for twice your stipu- 
lated fee in a voice that Lazarus might have 
used when he rose from the dead, is absurd. 
Janoo, who is really a woman of masculine in- 
tellect, saw this as quickly as I did. I heard 
her say, ^^Asli nahm! Fareibr' scornfully un- 
der her breath ; and just as she said so, the 
light in the basin died out, the head stopped 
talking, and we heard the room-door creak on 
its hinges. Then Janoo struck a match, lit 
the lamp, and we saw that head, basin, and 
seal-cutter were gone. Suddhoo was wringing 
his hands and explaining to any one who 
cared to listen, that, if his chances of eternal 
salvation depended on it, he could not raise an- 


160 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Other two hundred rupees. Azizun was nearly 
in hysterics in the corner; while Janoo sat 
down composedly on one of the beds to discuss 
the proba’ ilities of the whole thing being a 
bunao, or “make-up.” 

I explained as much as I knew of the seal- 
cutter’s way oijadoo; but her argument was 
much more simple: “The magic that is always 
demanding gifts is no true magic,” said 
she. 

“My mother told me that the only potent 
love-spells are those which are told you for 
love. This seal-cutter man is a liar and a 
devil. I dare not tell, do anything, or get any- 
thing done, because I am in debt to Bhagwan 
Dass the bunnia for two gold rings and a heavy 
anklet. I must get my food from his shop. 
The seal-cutter is the friend of Bhagwan Dass, 
and he would poison my food. A iooV s jadoo 
has been going on for ten days, and has cost 
Suddhoo many rupees each night. The seal- 
cutter used black hens and lemons and mantras 
before. He never showed us anything like this 
till to-night. Azizun is a fool, and will be a 
pur dahnashin soon. Suddhoo has lost his 
strength and his wits. See now ! I had hoped 
to get from Suddhoo many rupees while he 
lived, and many more after his death ; and be- 
hold, he is spending everything on that off- 
spring of a devil and a she-ass, the seal-cut- 
ter!” 

Here I said: “But what induced Suddhoo to 
drag me into the business* Of course I can 
speak to the seal-cutter, and he shall refund. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 161 


The whole thing is child’s talk — shame— and 
senseless. ” 

“Suddhoo is an old child," said Janoo. 
“He has lived on the roofs these seventy years 
and is as senseless as a milch-goat. He 
brought you here to assure himself that he was 
not breaking any law of the sirkar, whose salt 
he ate many years ago. He worships the dust 
off the feet of the seal-cutter, and that cow- 
devourer has forbidden him to go and see his 
son. What does Suddhoo know of your laws 
or the lightning* post? I have to watch his 
money going dav by day to that lying beast 
below. " 

Janoo stamped her foot on the floor and 
nearly cried with vexation; while Suddhoo 
was whimpering under a blanket in the cor- 
ner, and Azizun was trying to guide the pipe- 
stem to his foolish old mouth. 

Now the case stands thus. Unthinkingly, 
I have laid myself open to the charge of 
aiding and abetting the seal-cutter in obtaining 
money under false pretenses, which is forbid- 
den by Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code. 
I am helpless in the matter for these reasons, 
I cannot inform the police. What witnesses 
would support my statements? Janoo refuses 
flatly, and Azizun is a veiled woman some- 
where near Bareilly — lost in this big India 
of ours. I care not again to take the law into 
my own hands, and speak to the seal-cutter; 
for certain am I that, not only would Suddhoo 
disbelieve me, but this step would end in the 
11 


162 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


poisoning of Janoo, who is bound hand and 
foot by her debt to the bunnia. Suddhoo is an 
old dotard ; and whenever we meet mumbles 
my idiotic joke that the sirkar patronizes 

the black art than otherwise. His son is well 
now : but Suddhoo is completely under the in- 
fluence of the seal-cutter, by whose advice he 
regulates the affairs of his life. Janoo 
watches daily the money that she hoped to 
wheedle out of Suddhoo taken by the seal-cut- 
ter, and becomes daily more furious and sullen. 

She will never tell, because she dare not; 
but, unless something happens to prevent her, 
I am afraid that the seal-cutter will die of 
cholera — the white arsenic kind — about the 
middle of May. And thus I shall have to be 
privy to a murder in the house of Suddhoo. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


163 


HIS WEDDED WIFE. 

Cry “Murder!” in the market-place, and each 
Will turn upon his neighbor anxious eyes 
That ask — “Art thou the man?” We hunted, Cain, 
Some centuries ago across the world, 

That bred the fear our own misdeeds maintain 
To-day. — Vibart’s Moralities. 

Shakespeare says something about worms, 
or it may be giants or beetles, turning if you 
tread on them too severely. The safest plan 
is never to tread on a worm — not even on the 
last new subaltern from home, with his 
buttons hardly out of their tissue paper, and 
the red of sappy English beef in his cheeks. 
This is the story of the worm that turned. 
For the sake of brevity, we will call Henry 
Augustus Ramsay Faizanne, “The Worm,” 
although he really was an exceedingly pretty 
boy, without a hair on his face, and with a 
waist like a girl's when he came out to the 
Second “Shikarris" and was made unhappy in 
several ways. The “Shikarris” are a high- 
caste regiment, and you must be able to do 
things well — play a banjo or ride more than 
little, or sing, or act — to get on with them. 

The Worm did nothing except fall off his 
pony, and knock chips out of gate-posts with 
his trap. Even that became monotonous. 


164 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


after a time. He objected to whist, cut the 
cloth at billiards, sang out of tune, kept very 
much to himself, and wrote to his mamma 
and sisters at home. Four of these five things 
were vices which the “Shikarris” objected to 
and set themselves to eradicate. Every one 
knows how subalterns are, by brother subal- 
terns, softened and not permitted to be fero- 
cious. It is good and wholesome, and does 
no one any harm, unless tempers are lost; and 
then there is trouble. There was a man once 
— but that is another story. 

The “Shikarris” shikarred The Worm very 
much, and he bore everything without wink- 
ing. He was so good and so anxious to learn, 
and flushed so pink, that his education was cut 
short, and he was left to his own devices by 
every one except the senior subaltern who 
continued to make life a burden to The Worm. 
The senior subaltern meant no harm; but his 
chaff was coarse, and he didn’t quite under- 
stand where to stop. He had been waiting too 
long for his company; and that always sours a 
man. Also he was in love, which made him 
worse. 

One day, after he had borrowed The Worm’s 
trap for a lady who never existed, had used it 
himself all the afternoon, had sent a note to 
The Worm purporting to come from the lady, 
and was telling the mess all about it, The 
Worm rose in his place and said, in his quiet, 
ladylike voice: “That was a very pretty sell; 
but I’ll lay you a month’s pay to a month’s 
pay when you get your step, that I work a sell 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 165 


on you that you’ll remember for the rest of 
your days, and the regiment after you when 
you’re dead or broke.” The Worm wasn’t 
angry in the least, and the rest of the mess 
shouted. Then the senior subaltern looked 
at The Worm from the boots upward, and 
down again and said, “Done, Baby.” The 
Worm took the rest of the mess to witness that 
the bet had been taken, and retired into a 
book with a sweet smile. 

Two months passed, and the senior subal- 
tern still educated The Worm, who began to 
move about a little more as the hot weather 
came on. I have said that the senior subaltern 
was in love. The curious thing is that a girl 
was in love with the senior subaltern. Though 
the colonel said awful things, and the majors 
snorted, and married captains looked unutter- 
able wisdom, and the juniors scoffed, those 
two were engaged. 

The senior subaltern was so pleased with 
getting his company and his acceptance at the 
same time that he forgot to bother The Worm. 
The girl was a pretty girl and had money of 
her own. She does not come into this story 
at all. 

One night, at beginning of the hot weather, 
all the mess, except The Worm, who had gone 
to his own room to write home letters, were 
sitting on the platform outside the Mess 
House. The band had finished playing, but 
no one wanted to go in. And the captain’s 
wives were there also. The folly of a man in 
love in unlimited. The senior subaltern had 


166 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


been holding forth on the merits of the girl he 
was engaged to, and the ladies were purring 
approval, while the men yawned, when there 
was a rustle of skirts in the dark, and 4 tired, 
faint voice lifted itself: 

“Where’s my husband?” 

I do not wish in the least to reflect on the 
morality of the “Shikarris;” but it is on record 
that four men jumped up as if they had been 
shot. Three of them were married men. 
Perhaps they were afraid that their wives had 
come from home unbeknownst. The fourth 
said that he had acted on the impulse of the 
moment. He explained this afterward. 

Then the voice cried: “Oh, Lionel!” Lionel 
was the senior subaltern’s name. A woman 
came into the little circle of light by the can- 
dles on the peg-tables, stretching out her hands 
to the dark where the senior subaltern was, 
and sobbing. We rose to our feet, feeling 
that things were going to happen and ready to 
believe the worst. In this bad, small world of 
ours, one knows so little of the life of the next 
man — which, after all, is entirely his own con- 
cern — that one is not surprised when a crash 
comes. Anything might turn up any day for 
any one. Perhaps the senior subaltern had 
been trapped in his youth. Men are crippled 
that way occasionally. We didn’t know; we 
wanted to hear; and the captain’s wives were 
as anxious as we. If he had been trapped, he 
was to be excused; for the woman from no- 
where, in the dusty shoes and gray traveling 
dress, was very lovely, with black hair and 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 167 


great eyes full of tears. She was tall, with a 
fine figure, and her voice had a running sob in 
it pitiful to hear. As soon as the senior subal- 
tern stood up, she threw her arms round his 
neck, and called him “my darling,” and said 
she could not bear waiting alone in England, 
and his letters were so short and cold, and she 
was his to the end of the world, and would he 
forgive her? This did not sound quite like a 
lady’s way of speaking. It was too demon- 
strative. 

Things seemed black indeed, and the cap- 
tains’ wives peered under their eyebrows at 
the senior subaltern, and the colonel’s face 
set like the Day of Judgment framed in gray 
bristles, and no one spoke for awhile. 

Next the colonel said, very shortly: “Well, 
sir?” and the woman sobbed afresh. The 
senior subaltern was half-choked with the 
arms round his neck, but he gasped out: “It’s 

a d d lie! I never had a wife in my life!” 

“Don’t swear, ” said the colonel. “Come into 
the mess. We must sift this clear somehow,” 
and he sighed to himself, for he believed in 
his ‘‘Shikarris, ” did the colonel. 

We trooped into the anteroom, under the full 
lights, and there we saw how beautiful the 
woman was. She stood up in the middle of 
us all, sometimes choking with crying, then 
hard and proud, and then holding out her arms 
to the senior subaltern. It was like the fourth 
act of a tragedy. She told us how the senior 
subaltern had married her when he was home 
on leave eighteen months before ; and she 


168 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


seemed to know all that we knew, and more, 
too, of his people and his past life. He was 
white and ashy gray, trying now and again to 
break into the torrent of her words ; and we, 
noting how lovely she was and what a criminal 
he looked, esteemed him a beast of the worst 
kind. We felt sorry for him though. 

I shall never forget the indictment of the 
senior subaltern by his wife. Nor will he. It 
was so sudden, rushing out of the dark, unan- 
nounced, into our dull lives. The captain’s 
wives stood back ; but their eyes were alight, 
and you could see that they had already con- 
victed and sentenced the senior subaltern. 
The colonel seemed five years older. One 
major was shading his eyes with his hand and 
watching the woman from underneath it. 
Another was chewing his mustache and smiling 
quietly as if he were witnessing a play. Full 
in the open space in the center, by the whist 
tables, the senior subaltern’s terrier was hunt- 
ing for fleas. I remember all this as clearly 
as though a photograph were in my hand. I 
remember the look of horror on the senior 
subaltern’s face. It was rather like seeing a 
man hanged; but much more interesting. 
Finally, the woman wound up by saying that 
the senior subaltern carried a double F. M. in 
tattoo on his left shoulder. We all knew that, 
and to our innocent minds it seemed to clinch 
the matter. But one of the bachelor majors 
said very politely: “I presume that your mar- 
riage certificate would be more to the pur- 
pose?” 



“ She threw her arms round his neck.” — Page 167. 

FJaiu Tales from the Hills. 










PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


169 


That roused the woman. She stood up and 
sneered at the senior subaltern for a cur, and 
abused the major and the colonel and all the 
rest. Then she wept, and then she pulled a 
paper from her breast, saying imperially: 
“Take that! And let my husband — my law- 
fully-wedded husband — read it aloud — if he 
dare!” 

There was a hush, and the men looked into 
each other’s eyes as the senior subaltern came 
forward in a dazed and dizzy way, and took 
the paper. We were wondering as we stared, 
whether there was anything against any one 
of us that might turn up later on. The senior 
subaltern’s throat was dry; but, as he ran his 
eye over the paper, he broke out into a hoarse 
cackle of relief, and said to the woman, “You 
young blackguard!’’ 

But the woman had fled through a door, and 
on the paper was written: “This is to certify 
that I, The Worm, have paid in full my debts 
to the senior subaltern, and, further, that the 
senior subaltern is my debtor, by agreement 
on the 23 of February, as by the mess attested, 
to the extent of one month’s captain’s pay, 
in the lawful currency of the India Empire.” 

Then a deputation set off for The Worm’s 
quarters and found him, betwixt and between, 
unlacing his stays, with the hat, wig, serge 
dress, etc. , on the bed. He came over as he 
was, and the “Shikarris” shouted till the 
gunners’ mess sent over to know if they might 
have a share of the fun. I think we were all, 
except the colonel and the senior subaltern. 


170 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

a little disappointed that the scandal had come 
to nothing. But that is human nature. There 
could be no two words about The Worm’s act- 
ing. It leaned as near to a nasty tragedy as 
anything this side of a joke can. When most 
of the subalterns sat upon him with sofa cush- 
ions to find out why he had not said that acting 
was his strong point, he answered very 
quietly: “I don’t think you ever asked me. 
I used to act at home with my sisters.” But 
no acting with girls could account for The 
Worm’s display that night. Personally, I think 
it was in bad taste, besides being dangerous. 
There is no sort of use in playing with fire, 
even for fun. 

The “Shikarris” made him president of the 
regimental dramatic club ; and when the senior 
subaltern paid up his debt, which he did at 
once. The Worm sank the money in scenery 
and dresses. He was a good Worm ; and the 
“Shikarris” are proud of him. The only 
drawback is that he has been christened “Mrs. 
Senior Subaltern;” and as there are now two 
Mrs. Senior Subalterns in the Station, this is 
sometimes confusing to strangers. 

Later on, I will tell you of a case something 
like this, but with all the jest left out and 
nothing in it but real trouble. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


171 


THE BROKEN-LINK HANDICAP. 

While the snaffle holds, or the “long-neck” stings, 
While the big beam tilts, or the last bell rings. 

While horses are horses to train and to race. 

Then women and wine take a second place 
For me — for me — 

While a short “ten-three” 

Has a field to squander or fence to face ' 

—Song of the G. R. 

There are more ways of running a horse to 
suit your book than pulling his head off in the 
straight. Some men forget this. Understand 
clearly that all racing is rotten — as every- 
thing connected with losing money must be. 
Out here, in addition to its inherent rottenness, 
it has the merit of being two-thirds sham; 
looking pretty on paper only. Every one 
knows every one else far too well for business 
purposes. How on earth can you rack and 
harry and post a man for his losings, when you 
are fond of his wife, and live in the same 
Station with him? He says, “on the Monday 
following,” “I can’t settle just yet” You 
say, “All right, old man,” and think yourself 
lucky if you pull off nine hundred out of a two- 
thousand-rupee debt. Any way you look at 
it, Indian racing is immoral, and expensively 
immoral, which is much worse. If a man 
wants your money, he ought to ask for it, or 


172 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


send round a subscription list, instead of jug- 
gling about the country, with an Australian 
larrikin; a “brumby,” with as much breed as 
the boy, a brace of chumars in gold-laced caps ; 
three or four ekka-^onh.^^ with hogged manes ; 
and a switch-tailed demirep of a mare called 
Arab because she has a kink in her flag. Rac- 
ing leads to the shroff quicker than anything 
else. But if you have no conscience and no 
sentiments, and good hands, and some knowl- 
edge of pace, and ten years’ experience of 
horses, and several thousand rupees a month, 
I believe that you can occasionally contrive to 
pay your shoeing bills. 

Did you ever know Shackles — b. w. g., 
15.13-8 — coarse, loose, mule-like ears — barrel 
as long as a gatepost — tough as a telegraph 
wire — and the queerest brute that ever looked 
through a bridle? He was of no brand, being 
one of an ear-nicked mob taken into the 
Bucephalus at los. a head to make up 
freight, and sold raw and out of condition at 
Calcutta for Rs. 275. People who lost money 
on him called him a “brumby;” but if ever 
any horse had Harpoon’s shoulders and the 
Gin’s temper Shackles was that horse. Two 
miles was his own particular distance. He 
trained himself, ran himself, and rode him- 
self ; and, if his jockey insulted him by giving 
him hints, he shut up at once and bucked the 
boy off. He objected to dictation. Two or 
three of his owners did not understand this, 
and lost money in consequence. At last he 
was bought by a man who discovered that, if a 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 173 


race was to be won, Shackles, and Shackles 
only, would win it in his own way, so long as 
his jockey sat still. This man had a riding- 
boy called Brunt — a lad from Perth, West 
Australia — and he taught Brunt, with a train- 
er’s whip, the hardest thing a jock can learn — 
to sit still, to sit still, and to keep on sitting 
still. When Brunt fairly grasped this truth 
Shackles devastated the country. No weight 
could stop him at his own distance ; and the 
fame of Shackles spread from Ajmir in the 
south, to Chedputter in the north. There was 
no horse like Shackles, so long as he was 
allowed to do his work in his own way. But 
he was beaten in the end ; and the story of his 
fall is enough to make angels weep. 

At the lower end of the Chedputter race- 
course, just before the turn into the straight, 
the track passes close to a couple of old brick- 
mounds inclosing a funnel-shaped hollow. 
The big end of the funnel is not six feet from 
the railings on the off-side. The astounding 
peculiarity of the course is that, if you stand 
at one particular place, about half a mile 
away, inside the course, and speak at ordinary 
pitch, your voice just hits the funnel of the 
brick-mounds and makes a curious whining 
echo there. A man discovered this one morn- 
ing by accident while out training with a friend. 
He marked the place to stand and speak from 
with a couple of bricks, and he kept his knowl- 
edge to himself. Every peculiarity of a course 
is worth remembering in a country where 
rats play the mischief with the elephant-litter, 


174 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


and stewards build jumps to suit their own 
stables. This man ran a very fairish country- 
bred, a long, racking high mare with the 
temper of a fiend, and the paces of an airy 
wandering seraph — a drifty, glidy stretch. 
The mare was, as a delicate tribute to Mrs. 
Reiver, called “The Lady Regula Baddun” — ■ 
or for short, Regula Baddun. 

Shackles’ jockey. Brunt, was a quiet well- 
behaved boy, but his nerves had been shaken. 
He began his career by riding jump-races in 
Melbourne, where a few stewards want lynch- 
ing, and was one of the jockeys who came 
through the awful butchery — perhaps you will 
recollect it — of the Maribyrnong Plate. The 
walls were colonial ramparts — ^logs of jarrah 
spiked into masonry — with wings as strong as 
church buttresses. Once in his stride, a horse 
had to jump or fall. He couldn’t run out. In 
the Maribyrnong Plate twelve horses were 
jammed at the second wall. Red Hat, leading, 
fell this side, and threw out The Glen, and 
the ruck came up behind and the space between 
wing and wing was one struggling, screaming, 
kicking shambles. Four jockeys were takes 
out dead; three were very badly hurt, and 
Brunt was among the three. He told the story 
of the Maribyrnong Plate sometimes; and 
when he described how Whalley, on Red Hat, 
said, as the mare fell under him: “God ha’ 
mercy, I’m done for!’’ and how, next instant, 
Sithee There and White Otter had crushed 
the life out of poor Whalley, and the dust had 
a small hell of men and horses, no one mar- 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


175 


veled that Brunt had dropped jump-races and 
Australia together. Regula Badden’s owner 
knew that story by heart. Brunt never varied 
it in the telling. He had no education. 

Shackles came to the Chedputter autumn 
races one year, and his owner walked about 
insulting the sportsmen of Chedputter gener- 
ally, till they went to the honorary secretary 
in a body and said: “Appoint handicappers, 
and arrange a race which shall break Shackles 
and humble the pride of his owner.” The 
districts rose against Shackles and sent up of 
their best; Ousel, who was supposed to be 
able to do his mile in 1 153 ; Petard, the stud- 
bred, trained by a cavalry regiment who knew 
how to train; Gringalet, the ewe-lamb of the 
seventy- fifth ; Bobolink, the pride of Pesha- 
war ; and many others. 

They called that race The Broken-Link 
Handicap, because it was to smash Shackles; 
and the handicappers piled on the weights, and 
the fund gave eight hundred rupees, and the 
distance was “round the course for all horses. ” 
Shackles’ owner said: “You can arrange 
the race with regard to Shackles only. 
So long as you don’t bury him under weight- 
cloths, I don’t mind.” Regula Baddun’s 
owner said: “I throw in my mare to fret 
Ousel. Six furlongs is Regula’s distance, and 
she will then lie down and die. So also will 
Ousel, for his jockey doesn’t understand a 
waiting race.” Now, this was a lie, for Re- 
gula had been in work for two months at 
Dehra, and her chances were good, always 


176 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


supposing that Shackles broke a blood-vessel — 
or Brunt moved on him. 

The plunging in the lotteries was fine. 
They filled eight thousand rupee lotteries on 
the Broken-link Handicap, and the account in 
the Pioneer said that “favoritism was divid- 
ed. In plain English, the various contin- 
gents were wild on their respective horses ; for 
the handicappers had done their work well. 
The honorary secretary shouted himself hoarse 
through the din ; and the smoke of the cher- 
oots was like the smoke, and the rattling of 
the dice-boxes like the rattle of small-arm fire. 

Ten horses started — very level — and Regula 
Baddun’s owner cantered out on his hack to a 
place inside the circle of the course, where two 
bricks had been thrown. He faced toward the 
brick-mounds at the lower end of the course 
and waited. 

The story of the running is in the Pioneer. 
At the end of the first mile Shackles crept out 
of the ruck, well on the outside, ready to get 
round the turn, lay hold of the bit and spin up 
the straight before the others knew he had got 
away. Brunt was sitting still, perfectly happy, 
listening to the “drum, drum, drum” of the 
hoofs behind, and knowing that, in about 
twenty strides Shackles would draw one deep 
breath and go up the last half-mile like the 
‘ ‘ Flying Dutchman. ’ ’ As Shackles went short 
to take the turn and came abreast of the brick- 
mound, Brunt heard above the noise of the 
wind in his ears, a whining, wailing voice on 
the offside, saying: “God ha’ mercy. I’m 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


177 


done for!” In one stride, Brunt saw the 
whole seething smash of the Maribyrnong 
Plate before him, started in his saddle and 
gave a yell of terror. The start brought the 
heels into Shackles’ side, and the scream hurt 
Shackles’ feelings. He couldn’t stop dead; 
but he put out his feet and slid along for fifty 
yards, and then, very gravely and judicially, 
bucked off Brunt — a shaking, terror-stricken 
lump, while Regula Baddun made a neck-and- 
neck race with Bobolink up the straight, and 
won by a short head — Petard a bad third. 
Shackles’ owner, in the stand, tried to think 
that his field-glasses had gone wrong. Regula 
Baddun’s owner, waiting by the two bricks, 
gave one deep sigh of relief, and cantered back 
to the stand. He had won, in lotteries and 
bets, about fifteen thousand. 

It was a broken-link handicap with a ven- 
geance. It broke nearly all the men con- 
cerned, and nearly broke the heart of Shackles’ 
owner. He went down to interview Brunt. 
The boy lay, livid and gasping with fright, 
where he had tumbled off. The sin of losing 
the race never seemed to strike him. All he 
knew was that Whalley had “called” him, that 
the “call” was a warning; and, were he cut in 
two for it, he would never get up again. His 
nerve had gone altogether, and he only asked 
his master to give him a good thrashing, and 
let him go. He was fit for nothing, he said. 
He got his dismissal, and crept up to the pad- 
dock, white as chalk, with blue lips, his knees 
giving way under him. People said nasty 

12 Plain Tales 


178 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

things in the paddock; but Brunt never heeded. 
He changed into tweeds, took his stick and 
went down the road, still shaking with fright, 
and muttering over and over again: “God 
ha’ mercy, I’m done for!” To the best of my 
knowledge and belief he spoke the truth. 

So now you know how the Broken-link 
Handicap was run and won. Of course, you 
don’t believe it. You would credit anything 
about Russia’s designs on India, or the recom- 
mendations of the currency commission ; but a 
little bit of sober fact is more than you can 
stand. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


179 


BEYOND THE PALE. 

“Love heeds not caste nor sleep a broken bed. I went 
in search of love and lost myself.” — Hindu Proverb. 

A man should, whatever happens, keep to 
his own caste, race and breed. Let the white 
go to the white and the black to the black. 
Then, whatever trouble falls, is in the ordinary 
course of things — neither sudden, alien nor 
unexpected. 

This is the story of a man who wilfully 
stepped beyond the safe limits of decent every- 
day society, and paid for it heavily. 

He knew too much in the first instance ; and 
he saw too much in the second. He took too 
keep an interest in native life; but he will 
never do so again. 

Deep away in the heart of the city, behind 
Jitha Megji’s bustee^ lies Amir Nath’s Gully, 
which ends in a dead-wall pierced by one 
grated window. At the head of the gully is a 
big cowbyre, and the walls on either side of 
the gully are without windows. Neither 
Suchet Singh nor Gaur Chand approve of their 
women-folk looking into the world. If Durga 
Charan had been of their opinion, he would 
have been a happier man to-day, and little 
Bisesa would have been able to knead her own 
bread. Her room looked out through the 


180 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


grated window into the narrow dark gully 
where the sun never came and where the buf- 
faloes wallowed in the blue slime. She was a 
widow, about fifteen years old, and she prayed 
the gods, day and night to send her a lover ; 
for she did not approve of living alone. 

One day, the man — Trejago his name was — 
came into Amir Nath’s Gully on an aimless 
wandering ; and, after he had passed the buf- 
faloes, stumbled over a big heap of cattle food. 

Then he saw that the gully ended in a trap, 
and heard a little laugh from behind the grated 
window. It was a pretty little laugh, and 
Trejago, knowing that, for all practical pur- 
poses, the old “Arabian Nights’’ are good 
guides, went forward to the window, and whis- 
pered that verse of “The Love Song of Har 
Dyal’’ which begins: 

Can a man stand upright in the face of the naked 
Sun ; or a Lover in the Presence of his Beloved? 

If my feet fail me, O Heart of my Heart, am I to 
blame, being blnided by the glimpse of your beauty? 

There came the faint tchinks of a woman’s 
bracelets from behind the grating, and a little 
voice went on with the song at the fifth verse: 

Alas ! alas ! Can the Moon tell the Lotus of her love 
when the Gate of Heaven is shut and the clouds gather 
for the rains? 

They have taken my Beloved, and driven her with the 
pack-horses to the North. 

There are iron chains on the feet that were set on my 
heart. 

Call to the bowman to make ready 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 181 


The voice stopped suddenly, and Trejago 
walked out of Amir Nath’s Gully, wondering 
who in the world could have capped “The 
Love Song of Har Dyal” so neatly. 

Next morning as he was driving to office, an 
old woman threw a packet into his dog-cart. 
In the packet was the half of a broken glass 
bangle, one flower of the blood-red dhak. a 
pinch of bhusa or cattle-food, and eleven carda- 
moms. That packet was a letter — not a 
clumsy compromising letter, but an innocent 
unintelligible lover’s epistle. 

Trejago knew far too much about these 
things, as I have said. No Englishman should 
be able to translate object-letters. But Tre- 
jago spread all the trifles on the lid of his 
office-box and began to puzzle them out. 

A broken glass-bangle stands for a Hindu 
widow all India over; because, when her hus- 
band dies a woman’s bracelets are broken on 
her wrists. Trejago saw the meaning of the 
little bit of glass. The flower of the dhak 
means diversely “desire,” “come,” “write,” 
or “danger,” according to the other things 
with it. One cardamom means “jealousy ;” but 
when any article is duplicated in an object 
letter, it loses its symbolic meaning and stands 
merely for one of a number indicating time, 
or, if incense, curds, or saffron be sent also, 
place. The message ran then: “A widoW' — 
dhak flower and bhusa — at eleven o’c^.ock. ” 
The pinch of bhusa enlightened Trejago. He 
saw — this kind of letter leaves much to instinc - 
tive knowledge — that the bhusa referred to the 


182 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


big heap of cattle-food over which he had fallen 
in Amir Nath’s Gully, and that the message 
must come from the person behind the grating; 
she being a widow. So the message ran then : 
“A widow, in the gully in which is the heap of 
bhusa, desires you to come at eleven o’clock.” 

Trejago threw all the rubbish into the fire- 
place and laughed. He knew that men in the 
East do not make love under windows at 
eleven in the forenoon, nor do women fix 
appointments a week in advance. So he went 
that very night at, eleven, into Amir Nath’s 
Gully, clad in a boorka, which cloaks a man as 
well as a woman. Directly the gongs in the 
city made the hour, the little voice behind the 
grating took up ‘‘The Love Song of Har 
Dyal” at the verse where the Panthan girl 
calls upon Har Dyal to return. The song is 
really pretty in the vernacular. In English, 
you miss the wail of it. It runs something 
like this: 

Alone upon the housetops, to the North 
I turn and watch the lightning in the sky, 

The glamor of thy footsteps in the North, 

Come back to me, Beloved, or I die ! 

Below my feet the still bazar is laid. 

Far, far below the weary camels lie. 

The camels and the captives of thy raid. 

Come back to me, Beloved, or I die ! 

My father’s wife is old and harsh with years. 

And drudge of all my father’s house am I. 

My bread is sorrow and my drink is tears, 

Come back to me. Beloved, or I die ! 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 183 


As the song stopped, Trejago stepped up 
under the grating and whispered: “I am 
here.” 

Bisesa was good to look upon. That night 
was the beginning of many strange things, 
and of a double life so wild that Trejago to-day 
sometimes wonders if it were not all a dream. 
Bisesa or her old handmaiden who had thrown 
the object-letter had detached the heavy grat- 
ing from the brick-work of the wall ; so that 
the window slid inside, leaving only a square 
of raw masonry into which an active man 
might climb. In the daytime, Trejago drove 
through his routine of office work, or put on 
his calling-clothes and called on the ladies of 
the Station ; wondering how long they would 
know him if they knew of poor little Bisesa. 
At night, when all the city was still, came the 
walk under the evil-smelling boorka^ the patrol 
through Jitha Megji’s bustee, the quick turn 
into Amir Nath’s Gully between the sleeping 
cattle and the dead walls, and then last of . all 
Bisesa, and the deep, even breathing of the 
old woman who slept outside the door of the 
bare little room that Durga Charan allotted to 
his sister’s daughter. Who or what Durga 
Charan was, Trejago never inquired; and why 
in the world he was not discovered and knifed 
never occurred to him till his madness was 
over, and Bisesa. . . . But this comes later. 

Bisesa was an endless delight to Trejago. 
She was as ignorant as a bird ; and her dis- 
torted versions of the rumors from the outside 
world that had reached her in her room, 


184 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


amused Trejago almost as much as her lisping 
attempts to pronounce his name — “Christo- 
pher.” The first syllable was always more 
than she could manage, and she made funny 
little gestures with her roseleaf hands, as one 
throwing the name away, and then, kneeling 
before Trejago, asked him, exactly as an Eng- 
lish woman would do, if he were sure he loved 
her. Trejago swore that he loved her more 
than any one else in the world. Which was 
true. 

After a month of this folly, the exigencies of 
his other life compelled Trejago to be especial- 
ly attentive to a lady of his acquaintance. 
You may take it for a fact that anything of this 
kind is not only noticed and discussed by a 
man’s own race, but by some hundred and 
fifty natives as well. Trejago had to walk 
with this lady and talk to her at the band- 
stand, and once or twice to drive with her; 
never for an instant dreaming that this would 
effect his dearer out-of-the-way life. But the 
news flew, in the usual mysterious fashion, 
from mouth to mouth, till Bisesa’s duenna 
heard of it and told Bisesa. The child was so 
troubled that she did the household work evil- 
ly, and was beaten by Durga Charan’s wife in 
consequence. 

A week later, Bisesa taxed Trejago with the 
flirtation. She understood no gradations and 
spoke openly. Trejago laughed and Bisesa 
stamped her little feet— little feet, light as 
marigold flowers, that could lie in the palm of 
a man’s one hand. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 185 


Much that is written about “Oriental pas- 
sion and impulsiveness'* is exaggerated and 
compiled at second hand, but a little of it is 
true; and when an Englishman finds that 
little, it is quite as startling as any passion in 
his own proper life. Bisesa raged and 
stormed, and finally threatened to kill herself 
if Trejago did not at once drop the alien 
memsahib who had come between them. Tre- 
jago tried to explain, and to show her that she 
did not understand these things from a Wes- 
tern standpoint. Bisesa drew herself up, and 
said simply : 

“I do not. I know only this — it is not good 
that I should have made you dearer than my 
own heart to me, sahib. You are an English- 
man. I am only a black girl” — she was fairer 
than bar-gold in the mint — “and the widow of 
a black man. “ 

Then she sobbed and said: “But on my soul 
and my mother’s soul, I love you. There shall 
no harm come to you, whatever happens to 
me.” 

Trejago argued with the child, and tried to 
sooth her, but she seemed quite unreasonably 
disturbed. Nothing would satisfy her save 
that all relations between them should end. 
He was to go away at once. And he went. 
As he dropped out at the window she kissed 
his forehead twice, and he walked home 
wondering. 

A week, and then three weeks, passed with- 
out a sign from Bisesa. Trejago, thinking 
that the rupture had lasted quite long enough, 


186 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


went down to Amir Nath’s Gully for the fifth 
time in the three weeks, hoping that his rap at 
the sill of the shifting grating would be 
answered. He was not disappointed. 

There was a young moon, and one stream of 
light fell down into Amir Nath’s Gully, and 
struck the grating which was drawn away as 
he knocked. From the black dark, Bisesa held 
out her arms into the moonlight. Both hands 
had been cut off at the wrists, and the stumps 
were nearly healed. 

Then, as Bisesa bowed her head between 
her arms and sobbed, some one in the room 
grunted like a wild beast, and something sharp 
— a knife, sword or spear — thrust at Trejago in 
his boorka. The stroke missed his body, but 
cut into one of the muscles of the groin, and 
he limped slightly from the wound for the rest 
of his days. 

The grating went into its place. There was 
no sign whatever from inside the house — noth- 
ing but the moonlight strip on the high wall, 
and the blackness of Amir Nath’s Gully 
behind. 

The next thing Trejago remembers, after 
raging and shouting like a madman between 
those pitiless walls, is that he found himself 
near the river as the dawn was breaking, threw 
away his boorka and went home bareheaded. ' 


What the tragedy was — whether Bisesa had, 
in a fit of causeless despair, told everything, or 
the intrigue had been discovered and she tor- 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 187 


tured to tell ; whether Durga Charan knew his 
name and what became of Bisesa — Trejago 
does not know to this day. Something hor- 
rible had happened, and the thought of what it 
must have been comes upon Trejago in the 
night now and again, and keeps him company 
till the morning. One special feature of the 
case is that he does not know where lies the 
front of Durga Charan’s house. It may open 
on to a courtyard common to two or more 
houses, or it may lie behind any one of the 
gates of Jitha Megji’s bustee. Trejago cannot 
tell. He cannot get Bisesa — poor little Bisesa 
— back again. He has lost her in the city 
where each man’s house is as guarded and as 
unknowable as the grave; and the grating that 
opens into Amir Nath’s Gully has been walled 
up. 

But Trejago pays his calls regularly, and is 
reckoned a very decent sort of man. 

There is nothing peculiar about him, except 
a slight stiffness, caused by a riding-strain, in 
the right leg. 


188 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


\ 


IN ERROR. 

They burnt a corpse upon the sand — 

The light shone out afar; 

It guided home the plunging boats 
That beat from Zanzibar. 

Spirit of Fire, where’er Thy altars rise. 

Thou art Light of Guidance to our eyes ! 

— Salsette Boat-Song. 

There is hope for a man who gets publicly 
and riotously drunk more often than he ought 
to do; but there is no hope for the man who 
drinks secretly and alone in his own house — 
the man who is never seen to drink. 

This is a rule ; so there must be an exception 
to prove it. Moriarty’s case was that excep- 
tion. 

He was a civil engineer, and the govern- 
ment, very kindly, put him quite by himself in 
an out-district, with nobody but natives to talk 
to and a great deal of work to do. He did his 
work well in the four years he was utterly 
alone ; but he picked up the vice of secret and 
solitary drinking, and came up out of the wil- 
derness more old and worn and haggard than 
the dead-alive life had any right to make him. 
You know the saying that a man who has been 
alone in the jungle for more than a year is 
never quite sane all his life after. People cred- 
ited Moriarty’s queerness of manner and 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE KILLS. 189 


moody ways to hs solitude, and said that it 
showed how government spoiled the futures of 
its best men. Moriarty had built himself the 
plinth of a very good reputation in the 
bridge-dam-girder line. But he knew, every 
night of the week, that he was taking steps to 
undermine that reputation with L. L. L. and 
‘‘Christopher” and little nips of liqueurs, and 
filth of that kind. He had a sound constitution 
and a great brain, or else he would have 
broken down and died like a sick camel in the 
district, as better men have done before him. 

Government ordered him to Simla after he 
had come out of the desert; and he went up 
meaning to try for a post then vacant. That 
season, Mrs. Reiver — perhaps you will remem- 
ber her — was in the height of her power, and 
many men lay under her yoke. Everything 
bad that could be said has already been said 
about Mrs. Reiver, in another tale. Moriarty 
was heavily built and handsome, very quiet 
and nervously anxious to please his neighbors 
when he wasn’t sunk in a brown study. He 
started a good deal at sudden noises or if 
spoken to without warning; and, when you 
watched him drinking his glass of water at 
dinner, you could see the hand shake a little. 
But all this was put down to nervousness, and 
the quiet, steady, ‘‘sip-sip-sip, fill and sip-sip- 
sip again,” that went on in his own room 
when he was by himself, was never known, 
which was miraculous, seeing how everything 
in a man’s private life is public property out 
here. 


190 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Moriarty was drawn, not into Mrs. Reiver’s 
set, because they were not his sort, but into 
the power of Mrs. Reiver, and he fell down in 
front of her and made a goddess of her. This 
was due to his coming fresh out of the jungle 
to a big town. He could not scale things 
properly or see who was what. 

Because Mrs. Reiver was cold and hard, he 
said she was stately and dignified. Because 
she had no brains, and could not talk cleverly, 
he said she was reserved and shy. Mrs. 
Reiver shy! Because she was unworthy of 
honor or reverence from any one, he rever- 
enced her from a distance and dowered her 
with all the virtues in the Bible and most of 
those in Shakespeare. 

This big, dark, abstracted man who was so 
nervous when a pony cantered behind him, 
used to moon in the train of Mrs. Reiver, 
blushing with pleasure when she threw a 
word or two his way. His admiration was 
strictly platonic; even other women saw and 
admitted this. He did not move out in Simla, 
so he heard nothing against his idol : which 
was satisfactory. Mrs. Reiver took no special 
notice of him, beyond seeing that he was added 
to her list of admirers, and going for a walk 
with him now and then, just to show that he 
was her property, claimable as such. Morairty 
must have done most of the talking, for Mrs. 
Reiver couldn’t talk much to a man of his 
stamp ; and the little she said could not have 
been profitable. What Moriarty believed in, 
as he had good reason to, was Mrs. Reiver’s in- 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


191 


fluence over him, and, in that belief, set him- 
self seriously to try to do away with the vice 
that only he himself knew of. 

His experiences while he was fighting with 
it must have been peculiar, but he never de- 
scribed them. Sometimes he would hold off 
from everything except water for a week. 
Then, on a rainy night, when no one had 
asked him out to dinner, and there was a big 
fire in his room, and everything comfortable, 
he would sit down and make a big night of it 
by adding little nip to little nip, planning big 
schemes of reformation meanwhile, until he 
threw himself on his bed hopelessly drunk. 
He suffered next morning. 

One night the big crash came. He was 
troubled in his own mind over his attempts to 
make himself “worthy of the friendship” of 
Mrs. Reiver. The past ten days had been very 
bad ones, and the end of it all was that he re- 
ceived the arrears of two and three-quarter 
years of sipping in one attack of delirium tre- 
mens of the subdued kind; beginning with 
suicidal depression, going on to fits and starts 
and hysteria, and ending with downright rav- 
ing. As he sat in a chair in front of the fire, 
or walked up and down the room picking a 
handkerchief to pieces, you heard what poor 
Moriarty really thought of Mrs. Reiver, for 
he raved about her and his own fall for the 
most part ; though he raveled some P. W. D. 
accounts into the same skein of thought. He 
talked and talked in a low, dry whisper to 
himself, and there was no stopping him. He 


192 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


seemed to know that there was somethingf 
wrong, and twice tried to pull himself to- 
gether and confer rationally with the doctor; 
but his mind ran out of control at once, and 
he fell back to a whisper and the story of his 
troubles. It is terrible to hear a big man 
babbling like a child of all that a man usually 
locks up and puts away in the deep of his 
heart. Moriarty read out his very soul for the 
benefit of any one who was in the room be- 
tween ten-thirty that night and two — forty-five 
next morning. 

From what he said, one gathered how im- 
mense an influence Mrs. Reiver held over him, 
and how thoroughly he felt for his own 
lapse. His whisperings cannot, of course, be 
put down here ; but they were very instruc- 
tive as showing the errors of his estimates. 

When the trouble was over, and his few 
acquaintances were pitying him for the bad 
attack of jungle-fever that had so pulled him 
down, Moriarty swore a big oath to himself 
and went abroad again with Mrs. Reiver till 
the end of the season, adoring her in a quiet 
and deferential way as an angel from heaven. 
Later on he took to riding — not hacking but 
honest riding — which was good proof that he 
was improving, and you could slam doors be- 
hind him without his jumping to his feet with 
a gasp. That, again, was hopeful. 

How he kept his oath, and what it cost him 
in the beginning nobody knows. He certainly 
managed to compass the hardest thing that a 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 193 


man who has drank heavily can do. He took 
his peg and wine at dinner but he never drank 
alone, and never let what he drank have the 
least hold on him. 

Once he told a bosom-friend the story of his 
great trouble, and how the “influence of a 
pure honest woman, and an angel as well,” 
had saved him. When the man — startled at 
anything good being laid to Mrs. Reiver’s 
door — laughed, it cost him Moriarty’s friend- 
ship. Moriarty, who is married now to a 
womap ten thousand times better than Mrs. 
Reiver — a woman who believes that there is 
no man on earth as good and clever as her 
husband — will go down to his grave vowing 
and protesting that Mrs. Reiver saved him 
from ruin in both worlds. 

That she knew anything of Moriarty’s 
weakness nobody believed for a moment. 
That she would have cut him dead, thrown 
him over, and acquainted all her friends with 
her discovery, if she had known of it, nobody 
who knew her doubted for an instant. 

Moriarty thought her something she never 
was, and in that belief saved himself, which 
was just as good as though she had been 
everything that he had imagined. 

But the question is, what claim will Mrs. 
Reiver have to the credit of Moriarty’s salva- 
tion when her day of reckoning comes? 


Plain Tales 13 


194 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


A BANK FRAUD. 

He drank strong waters and his speech was coarse ; 
He purchased raiment and forebore to pay; 

He struck a trusting junior with a horse, 

And won Gymkhanas in a doubtful way. 

Then, ’twixt a vice and folly, turned aside ^ 

To do good deeds and straight to cloak them, lied. 

— The Mess-Room. 

If Reggie Burke were in India now, he 
would resent this tale being told ; but as he is in 
Hong Kong and won’t see it, the telling is 
safe. He was the man who worked the big 
fraud on the Sind and Sialkote Bank. He 
was manager of an up-country branch, and a 
sound, practical man with a large experience 
of native loan and insurance work. He could 
combine the frivolities of ordinary life with 
his work, and yet do well. Reggie Burke 
rode anything that would let him get up, 
danced as neatly as he rode, and was wanted 
for every sort of amusement in the Station. 

As he said himself, and as many found out 
rather to their surprise, there were two 
Burkes, both very much at your service. 
“Reggie Burke/’ between four and ten, 
ready for anything from a hot-weather gymk- 
hana \,o a riding-picnic; and between ten and 
four, “Mr. Reginald Burke, Manager of the 
Sind and Sialkote Branch Bank.’’ You might 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 195 


play polo with him one afternoon and hear him 
express his opinions when a man crossed ; and 
you might call on him next morning to raise a 
two- thousand rupee loan on a five-hundred- 
pound insurance policy, eighty pounds paid 
in premiums. He would recognize you, but 
you would have some trouble in recognizing 
him. 

The directors of the bank — it had its head- 
quarters in Calcutta and is general manager’s 
word carried weight with the government — 
picked their men well. They had tested Reg- 
gie up to a fairly severe breaking-strain. They 
trusted him just as much as directors ever 
trust managers. You must see for yourself 
whether their trust was misplaced. 

Reggie’s branch was in a big Station, and 
worked with the usual staff — one manager, 
one accountant, both English, a cashier, and 
a horde of native clerks : besides the police 
patrol at nights outside. The bulk of its work, 
for it was in a thriving district, was hoondi 
and accommodation of all kinds. A fool has 
no grip of this sort of business; and a clever 
man who does not go about among his clients, 
and know more than a little of their affairs, is 
worse than a fool. Reggie was young-look- 
ing, clean-shaved, with a twinkle in his eye, 
and a head that nothing short of a gallon of 
the gunners’ Madeira could make any impres- 
sion on. 

One day, at a big dinner, he announced 
casually that the directors had shifted on to 
him a natural curiosity from England in the 


196 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


accountant line. He was perfectly correct. 
Mr. Silas Riley, accountant, was a most curi- 
ous animal — a long, gawky rawboned York- 
shireman, full of the savage self-conceit that 
blossoms only in the best county in England. 
Arrogance was a mild word for the^ mental 
attitude of Mr. S. Riley. He had worked him- 
self up, after seven years, to a cashier’s posi- 
tion in a Huddersfield bank; and all his expe- 
rience lay among the factories of the north. 
Perhaps he would have done better on the 
Bombay side, where they are happy with one- 
half per cent, profits, and money is cheap. 
He was useless for Upper India and a wheat 
province, where a man wants a large head 
and a touch of imagination, if he is to turn out 
a satisfactory balance-sheet. 

He was wonderfully narrow-minded in bus- 
iness, and being new to the country, had no 
notion that Indian banking is totally distinct ' 
from home work. Like most clever self- 
made men, he had much simplicity in his 
nature ; and, somehow or other, had construed 
the ordinarily polite terms of his letter of en- 
gagement into a belief that the directors had 
chosen him on account of his special and bril- 
liant talents, and that they set great store by 
him. This notion grew and crystallized ; thus 
adding to his natural north-country conceit. 
Further, he was delicate, suffered from some 
trouble in his chest, and was short in his tem- 
per. 

You will admit that Reggie had reason to 
call his new accountant a natural curiosity. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 197 


The two men failed to hit it off at all. Riley 
considered Reggie a wild, feather-headed idiot, 
given to heaven only knew what dissipation in 
low places called “messes, ” and totally unfit 
for the serious and solemn vocation of bank- 
ing. He could never get over Reggie's look 
of youth and “you-be-damned” air; and he 
couldn’t understand Reggie’s friends — clean- 
built, careless men in the army — who rode over 
to big Sunday breakfasts at the bank, and told 
sultry stories till Riley got up and left the 
room. Riley was always showing Reggie how 
the business ought to be conducted, and Reg- 
gie had more than once to remind him that 
seven years’ limited experience between Hud- 
dersfield and Beverley did not qualify a man 
to steer a big up-country business. Then 
Riley sulked and referred to himself as a pillar 
of the bank and a cherished friend of the 
directors, and Reggie tore his hair. If a 
man’s English subordinates fail him in this 
country, he comes to a hard time indeed, for 
native help has strict limitations. In the win- 
ter Riley went sick for weeks at a time with his 
lung complaint, and this threw more work on 
Reggie. But he preferred it to the everlast- 
ing friction when foley was well. 

One of the traveling inspectors of the bank 
discovered these collapses and reported them 
to the directors. Now Riley had been foisted 
on the bank by an M. R, who wanted the sup- 
port of Riley’s father, who, again, was anxious 
to get his son out to a warmer climate because 
of those lungs. The M. P. had interest in the 


198 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

bank; but one of the directors wanted to ad- 
vance a nominee of his own; and after Riley’s 
father had died, he made the rest of the board 
see that an accountant who was sick for half 
the year had better give place to a healthy 
man. If Riley had known the real story of his 
appointment, he might have behaved better; 
but knowing nothing, his stretches of sickness 
alternated with restless, persistent, meddling 
irritation of Reggie, and all the hundred ways 
in which conceit in a subordinate situation can 
find play. Reggie used to call him striking 
and hair-curling names behind his back as a 
relief of his own feelings; but he never abused 
him to his face, because he said: “Riley is 
such a frail beast that half of his loathsome 
conceit is due to pains in the chest. “ 

Late one April, Riley went very sick, indeed. 
The doctor punched him and thumped him, 
and told him he would be better before long. 
Then the doctor went to Reggie and said: 
“Do you know how sick you accountant is?” 

“No!” said Reggie. “The worse the better, 
confound him! He’s a clacking nuisance 
when he’s well. I’ll let you take away the 
bank safe if you can drug him silent for this 
hot weather.’’ 

But the doctor did not laugh. “Man, I’m 
not joking,” he said. “I’ll give him another 
three months in his bed and a week or so 
more to die in. On my honor and reputation 
that’s all the grace he has in the world. 
Consumption has hold of him to the marrow.” 

Reggie’s face changed at once into the face 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


199 


of “Mr. Reginald Burke,” and he answered: 
“What can I do?” 

“Nothing,” said the doctor. “For all prac- 
tical purposes the man is dead already. Keep 
him quiet and cheerful and tell him he’s 
going to recover. That’s all. I’ll look after * 
him to the end, of course.” 

The doctor went away, and Reggie sat down 
to open the evening mail. His first letter was 
one from the directors, intimating for his 
information that Mr. Riley was to resign, 
under a month’s notice, by the terms of his 
agreement, telling Reggie that their letter to 
Riley would follow and advising Reggie of the 
coming of a new accountant, a man whom 
Reggie knew and liked. 

Reggie lit a cheroot, and, before he had 
finished smoking, he had sketched the outline 
of a fraud. He put away — “burked” — the 
directors’ letter, and went in to talk to Riley 
who was as ungracious as usual, and fretting 
himself over the way the bank would run dur- 
ing his illness. He never thought of the extra 
work on Reggie’s shoulders, but solely of the 
damage to his own prospects of advancement. 
Then Reggie assured him that everything 
would be well, and that he, Reggie would 
confer with Riley daily on the management of 
the bank. Riley was a little soothed, but he 
hinted in as many words that he did not think 
much of Reggie’s business capacity. Reggie 
was humble. And he had letters in his desk 
from the directors that a Gilbarte or a Hardie 
might have been proud of! 


200 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


The days passed in the big darkened house, 
and the directors’ letter of dismissal to Riley 
came and was put away by Reggie, who, every 
evening brought the books to Riley’s room, 
and showed him what had been going forward, 
while Riley snarled. Reggie did his best to 
make statements pleasing to Riley, but the 
accountant was sure that the bank was going 
to rack and ruin without him. In June, as the 
lying in bed told on his spirit, he asked whether 
his absence had been noted by the directors, 
and Reggie said that they had written most 
sympathetic letters, hoping that he would be 
able to resume his valuable services before 
long. He showed Riley the letters: and Riley 
said that the directors ought to have written 
to him direct. A few days later, Reggie 
opened Riley’s mail in the half-light of the 
room, and gave him the sheet — not the enve- 
lope — of a letter to Riley from the directors. 
Riley said he would thank Reggie not to 
interfere with his private papers, especially as 
Reggie knew he was too weak to open his own 
letters. Reggie apologized. 

Then Riley’s mood changed, and he lectured 
Reggie on his evil ways: his horses and his 
bad friends. “Of course, lying here, on my 
back, Mr. Burke, I can’t keep you straight; but 
when I’m well I do hope you’ll pay some heed 
to my Words. ’ ’ Reggie who had dropped polo, 
and dinners, and tennis, and all to attend to 
Riley, said that he was penitent and settled 
Riley’s head on the pillow, and heard him fret 
and contradict in hard, dry, hacking whispers. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 201 

without a sign of impatience. This at the end 
of a heavy day’s office work, doing double 
duty, in the latter half of June. 

When the new accountant came, Reggie told 
him the facts of the case, and announced to 
Riley that he had a guest staying with him. 
Riley said that he might have had more con- 
sideration than to entertain his “doubtful 
friends” at such a time. Reggie made Carron, 
the new accountant, sleep at the club in con- 
sequence. Carron’s arrival took some of the 
heavy work off his shoulders, and he had time 
to attend to Riley’s exactions — to explain, 
soothe, invent, and settle and resettle the poor 
wretch in bed, and to forge complimentary 
letters from Calcutta. At the end of the first 
month, Riley wished to send some money 
home to his mother. Reggie sent the draft. 
At the end of the second month Riley’s salary 
came in just the same. Reggie paid it out of 
his own pocket; and, with it, wrote Riley a 
beautiful letter from the directors. 

Riley was very ill, indeed, but the flame of 
his life burned unsteadily. Now and then he 
would be cheerful and confident about the 
future, sketching plans for going home and 
seeing his mother. Reggie listened patiently 
when the office work was over, and encouraged 
him. 

At other times Riley insisted on Reggie’s 
reading the Bible and grim “Methody” tracts 
to him. Out of these tracts he pointed morals 
directed at his manager. But he always 
found time to worry Reggie about the work- 


202 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


ing of the bank, and to show him where the 
weak points lay. 

This in-door, sick-room life and constant 
strains wore Reggie down a good deal, and 
shook his nerves, and lowered his billiard-play 
by forty points. But the business of the bank, 
and the business of the sick-room, had to go 
on, though the glass was 1160 in the shade. 

At the end of the third month Riley was 
sinking fast, and had begun to realize that he 
was very sick. But the conceit that made 
him worry Reggie kept him from believing 
the worst. “He wants some sort of mental 
stimulant if he is to drag on,” said the doctor. 
“Keep him interested in life if you care about 
his living. ” So Riley, contrary to all the laws 
of business and the finance, received a twenty- 
five per cent, rise of salary from the directors. 
The “mental stimulant” succeeded beauti- 
fully. Riley was happy and cheerful, and, -as 
is often the case in consumption, healthiest 
in mind when the body was weakest. He 
lingered for a full month, snarling and fretting 
about the bank, talking of the future, hearing 
the Bible read, lecturing Reggie on sin, and 
wondering when he would be able to move 
abroad. 

But at the end of September, one mercilessly 
hot evening, he rose up in his bed with a little 
gasp, and said quickly to Reggie: “Mr. Burke, 
I am going to die. I know it in myself. My 
chest is all hollow inside, and there’s nothing 
to breathe with. To the best of my knowledge 
I have done nowt,” — he was returning to the 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 203 


talk of his boyhood — “to lie heavy on my con- 
science. God be thanked, I have been pre- 
served from the grosser forms of sin ; and I 

counsel you, Mr. Burke “ 

Here his voice died down and Reggie 
stooped over him. 

“Send my salary for September to my 
mother .... done great things with the bank 
if I had been spared. . . . mistaken policy 

. . . . no fault of mine “ 

Then he turned his face to the wall and died 
Reggie drew the sheet over his face, and 
went out into the veranda, with his last 
“mental stimulant” — a letter of condolence 
and sympathy from the directors — unused in 
his pocket. 

“If I’d been only ten minutes earlier,” 
thought Reggie, “I might have heartened him 
up to pull through another day.” 


204 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


0 


TODS’ AMENDMENT. 

The World hath set its heavy yoke 
Upon the old white- bearded folk 
Who strive to please the King. 

God’s mercy is upon the young, 

God’s wisdom in the baby tongue 
That fears not anything. 

— The Parable of Chajju Bhagat. 

Now Tods’ mamma was a singularly charm- 
ing woman, and every one in Simla knew 
Tods. Most men had saved him from death 
on occasions. He was beyond his ayks control 
altogether, and periled his life daily to find 
out what would happen if you pulled a moun- 
tain battery mule’s tail. He was an utterly 
fearless young pagan, about six years old, 
and the only baby who ever broke the holy 
calm of the supreme legislative council. 

It happened this way: Tods’ pet kid got 
loose, and fled up the hill, off the Boileaugunge 
Road, Tods after it, until it burst into the 
Viceregal Lodge lawn, then attached to “Peter- 
hoff. ” The council were sitting at the time, 
and the windows were open because it was 
warm. The red lancer in the porch told 
Tods to go away; but Tods knew the red 
lancer and most of the members of council 
personally. Moreover, he had firm hold of the 
kid’s collar, and was being dragged all across 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 205 


the flower beds. “Give my salaam to the long 
councilor, sahib ^ and ask him to help me take 
Moti back!” gasped Tods. The council heard 
the noise through the open windows; and, 
after an interval, was seen the shocking spec- 
tacle of a legal member and a lieutenant-gov- 
ernor helping, under the direct patronage of a 
commander-in-chief and a viceroy, one small 
and very dirty boy in a sailor’s suit and a 
tangle of brown hair, to coerce a lively and 
rebellious kid. They headed it off down the 
path to the Mall, and Tods went home in 
triumph and told his mamma that all the 
councilor sahibs had been helping him to catch 
Moti. Whereat his mamma smacked Tods for 
interfering with the administration of the 
empire ; but Tods met the legal member next 
day and told him in confidence that if the legal 
member ever wanted to catch a goat, he, Tods, 
would give him all the help in his power. 
“Thank you, Tods,” said the legal member. 

Tods was the idol of some eighty jhampanis^ 
and half as many saises. He saluted them all as 
“O brother.” It never entered his head that 
any living human being could disobey his 
orders; and he was the buffer between the 
servants and his mamma’s wrath. The work- 
ing of that household turned on Tods, who was 
adored by every one from the dhoby to the dog- 
boy. Even Futteh Khan, the villainous loafer 
khit from Mussoorie, shirked risking Tods’ 
displeasure for fear his co-mates should look 
down on him. 

So Tods had honor in the land from Boi- 


206 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


leaugunge to Chota Simla, and ruled justly 
according to his lights. Of course, he spoke 
Urdu, but he had also mastered many queer 
side-speeches like the chotee bolee oi the women, 
and held grave converse with shopkeepers 
and Hill-coolies alike. He was precocious for 
his age, and his mixing with natives had 
taught him some of the more bitter truths of 
life; the meanness and the sordidness of it. 
He used, over his bread and milk, to deliver 
solemn and serious aphorisms, translated from 
the vernacular into the English, that made his 
mamma jump and vow that Tods must go 
home next hot weather. 

Just when Tods was in the bloom of his 
power, the supreme legislature were hacking 
out a bill, for the sub-Montane tracts, a revi- 
sion of the then act, smaller than the Punjab 
land bill, but affecting a few hundred thousand 
people none the less. The legal member had 
built, and bolstered, and embroidered, and 
amended that bill, till it looked beautiful on 
paper. Then the council began to settle what 
they called the “minor details.” As if any 
Englishman legislating for natives knows 
enough to know which are the minor and 
which are the major points, from the native 
point of view, of any measure ! That bill was 
a triumph of “safe guarding the interest of 
the tenant.” One clause provided that land 
should not be leased on longer terms than five 
years at a stretch ; because, if the landlord had 
a tenant bound down for, say, twenty years, 
he would squeeze the very life out of him. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 207 


The notion was to keep up the stream of inde- 
pendant cultivators in the sub-Montane tracts; 
and ethnologically and politically the notion 
was correct. The only drawback was that it 
was altogether wrong. A native’s life in India 
implies the life of his son. Wherefore, you 
cannot legislate for one generation at a time. 
You must consider the next from the native 
point of view. Curiously enough, the native 
now and then, and in Northern India more 
particularly, hates being over-protected against 
himself. There was a Naga village once, 
where they lived on dead and buried com- 
missariat mules. But that is another story. 

For many reasons, to be explained later, the 
people concerned objected to the bill. The na- 
tive member in council knew as much about 
Punjabis as he knew about Charing Cross. He 
had said in Calcutta that “the bill was entirely 
in accord with the desires of that large and 
important class, the cultivators;’’ and so on, 
and so on. The legal member’s knowledge of 
natives was limited to English-speaking Dur- 
baris, and his own red chaprassis, the sub-Mon- 
tane tracts concerned no one in particular, 
the deputy commissioners were a good deal 
too driven to make representation, and the 
measure was one which dealt with small land- 
holders only. Nevertheless, the legal member 
prayed that it might be correct, for he was a 
nervously conscientious man. He did not 
know that no man can tell what natives think 
unless he mixes with them with the varnish 
off. And not always then. But he did the 


208 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


best he knew. And the measure came up to 
the supreme council for the final touches, while 
Tods patroled the Burra Simla Bazar in his 
morning rides, and played with the monkey 
belonging to Ditta Mull, the bunnia^ and 
listened, as a child listens to all the stray talk 
about this new freak of the Lat Sahib's. 

One day there was a dinner-party at the 
house of Tods’ mamma, and the legal member 
came. Tods was in bed, but he kept awake 
till he heard the bursts of laughter from the 
men over the coifee. Then he paddled out in 
his little red flannel dressing-gown and his 
night-suit and took refuge by the side of his 
father, knowing that he would not be sent 
back. “See the miseries of having a family!’’ 
said Tods’ father, giving Tods three prunes, 
some water in a glass that had been used for 
claret, and telling him to sit still. Tods sucked 
the prunes slowly, knowing that he would 
have to go when they were finished, and 
sipped the pink water like a man of the world, 
as he listened to the conversation. Presently, 
the legal member, talking “shop” to the 
head of a department, mentioned his bill by 
its full name — “The sub-Montane Tracts 
Ryotwari Revised Enactment.” Tods caught 
the one native word and lifting up his small 
voice said: 

“Oh, I know all about that! Has it been 
murramiLtted yet, co\xnQ,\\ov sahib f'* 

“How much?” said the legal member. 

‘ ‘ Murramutted — mended — Put theek^ you 
know — made nice to please Ditta Mull!” 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 209 


The legal member left his place and moved 
up next to Tods. 

“What do you know about Ryotwari^ little 
man?” he said. 

“I’m not a little man, I’m Tods, and I know 
all about it. Ditta Mull, and Choga Lall, and 
Amir Nath, and — oh, lakhs of my friends tell 
me about it in the bazars when I talk to 
them. ” 

“Oh, they do — do they? What do they say, 
Tods?” Tods tucked his feet under his red 
flannel dressing gown and said: “I must 
fink. ” 

The legal member waited patiently. Then 
Tods, with infinite compassion: 

“You don’t speak my talk, do you, coun- 
cilor sahibr ’ 

“No; I am sorry to say I do not,” said the 
legal member. 

“Very well,” said Tods, “I must fink in 
English. ” 

Fie spent a minute putting his ideas in order, 
and began very slowly translating in his mind 
from the vernacular to English, as many 
Anglo-Indian children do. You must remem- 
ber that the legal member helped him on by 
questions when he halted, for Tods was not 
equal to the sustained flight of oratory that 
follows. 

“Ditta Mull says: ‘This thing is the talk of 
a child, and was made up by fools.’ But I 
don’t think you are a fool, councilor sahib^'* 
said Tods hastily. “You caught my goat. 
This is what Ditta Mull says: *I am not a fool, 

14 Plain Tales 


210 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

and why should the sirkar say I am a child? I 
can see if the land is good and if the landlord 
is good. If I am a fool, the sin is upon my 
own head. For five years I take my ground 
for which I have saved money, and a wife I 
take too, and a little son is born. ’ Ditta Mull 
has one daughter now, but he says he will have 
a son soon. And he says: ‘At the end of five 
years, by this new bundobust^ I must go. If I 
do not go, I must get fresh seals and takkus- 
stamps on the papers, perhaps in the middle of 
the harvest, and to go to the law courts once 
is wisdom, but to go twice is Jehannum. ’ That 
is quite true,” explained Tods gravely. “All 
my friends say so. And Ditta Mull says: 
‘Always fresh iakkus and paying money to 
vakils and chaprassis and law-courts every five 
years, or else the landlord makes me go. Why 
do I want to go? Am I a fool? If I am a fool 
and do not know, after forty years, good land 
when I see it, let me die! But if the new 
bundobust says for fifteen years, that it is good 
and wise. My little son is a man, and I am 
burned, and he takes the ground or another 
ground, paying only once for the lakkus-sta,mps 
on the papers, and his little son is born, and 
at the end of fifteen years is a man too. But 
what profit is there in five years and fresh 
papers? Nothing but dikh, trouble, dikh. We 
are not young men 'who take these lands, but 
old ones — not jais, but tradesmen with a little 
money — and for fifteen years we shall have 
peace. Nor are we children that the sirkar 
should treat us so. ’ ” 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 211 


Here Tods stopped short, for the whole table 
were listening. The legal member said to 
Tods: “Is that all?” 

“All I can remember,” said Tods. “But 
you should see Ditta Mull’s big monkey. It’s 
just like a councilor sahib. ’ ’ 

“Tods! Go to bed,” said his father. 

Tods gathered up his dressing-gown tail and 
departed. 

The legal member brought his hand down 
on the table with a crash — “By Jove!” said 
the legal member, “I believe the boy is right. 
The short tenure is the weak point.” 

He left early, thinking over what Tods had 
said. Now, is was obviously impossible for 
the legal member to play with a bunnia mon- 
key, by way of getting understanding ; but he 
did better. He made inquiries, always bear- 
ing in mind the fact that the real native — not 
the hybrid, university-trained mule — is as 
timid as a colt, and, little by little he coaxed 
some of the men whom the measure concerned 
most intimately to give in their views, which 
squared very closely with Tods’ evidence. 

So the bill was amended in that clause ; and 
the legal member was filled with an uneasy 
suspicion that native members represent very 
little except the orders they carry on their 
bosoms. But he put the thought from him as 
illiberal. He was a most liberal man. 

After a time, the news spread through the 
bazar that Tods had got the bill recast in the 
tenure-clause, and if Tods’ mamma had not 
interfered Tods would have made himself sick 


212 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


on the baskets of fruit and pistachio nuts and 
Cabuli grapes and almonds that crowded the 
veranda. Till he went home Tods ranked 
some few degrees before the viceroy in popular 
estimation. But for the little life of him 
Tods could not understand why. 

In the legal member’s private-paper box still 
lies the rough draft of the Sub-Montane Tracts 
Ryotwari Revised Enactment; and, opposite 
the twenty-second clause, penciled in blue 
chalk, and signed by the legal member, are 
the words, “Tods’ Amendment.” 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


213 


THE DAUGHTER OF THE REGIMENT. 

Jain ’Ardin’ was a Sarjint’s wife, 

A Sarjint’s wife wuz she. 

She married of ’im in Orldershort 
An’ corned acrost the sea. 

(Chorus) — ’Ave you never ’eard tell o’ Jain ’Ardin’? 

Jain ’Ardin’? 

Jain ’Ardin’? 

’Ave you never ’eard tell o’ Jain ’Ardin’? 

The pride o’ the Companee? 

— Old Barrack-Room Ballad. 

“A gentleman who doesn’t know the Circas- 
sian Circle ought not to stand up for it — put- 
tin’ everybody out.” That was what Miss 
McKenna said, and the sergeant who was my 
vis-a-vis looked the same thing. I was afraid 
of Miss McKenna. She was six feet high, all 
yellow freckles and red hair, and was simply 
clad in white satin shoes, a pink muslin dress, 
an apple-green stuff sash, and black silk 
gloves, with yellow roses in her hair. Where- 
fore I fled from Miss McKenna and sought my 
friend Private Mulvaney who was at the cant 
— refreshment-table. 

“So you’ve been dancin’ with little Jhansi 
McKenna, sorr — she that’s goin’ to marry 
Corp’ril Slane? Whin you next conversh wid 
yonr lorruds an’ your ladies, tell thim you’ve 
danced wid little Jhansi. ’Tis a thing to be 
proud av. ” 


214 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


But I wasn’t proud. I was humble. I saw 
a story in Private Mulvaney’s eye; and, 
besides, if he stayed too long at the bar, he 
would, I knew, qualify for more pack-drill. 
Now to meet an esteemed friend doing pack- 
drill outside the guard-room is embarrassing, 
especially if you happen to be walking with 
his commanding officer. 

“Come on to the parade ground, Mulvaney, 
it’s cooler there, and tell me about Miss Mc- 
Kenna. What is she, and who is she, and why 
is she called ‘Jhansi’?’’ 

“D’ye mane to say you’ve never heard av 
Ould Pummeloe’s daughter? An’ you thinkin’ 
you know things! I’m yid ye in a minut’ 
whin me poipe’s lit!’’ 

We came out under the stars. Mulvaney sat 
down on one of the artillery bridges, and 
began in the usual way : his pipe between his 
teeth, his big hands clasped and dropped be- 
tween his knee, and his cap well on the back 
of his head: 

“Whin Mrs. Mulvaney, that is, was Miss 
Shad that was, you were a dale younger than 
you are now, an’ the army was dif’rint in sev’ril 
e’senshuls. Bhoys have no call for to marry 
nowadays, an’ that’s why the army has so few 
rale, good, honust, swearin’, strapagin’, 
tinder-hearted, heavy-futted wives as ut used 
to have whin I was a corp’ril. I was rejuced 
afterward — but no matther — I was a corp’ril 
wanst. In thim times, a man lived an’ died 
wid his rigiment; an’ by natur’, he married 
whin he was a man. Whin I was corp’ril — 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 215 


Mother av Hivin, how the rigimint has died 
an’ been borrun since that day! my color- 
ser’jint was Ould McKenna, an’ a married 
man tu. An’ his woife — his first woife, for 
he married three times did McKenna — was 
Bridget McKenna, from Portarlington, like 
mesilf. I’ve misremembered fwhat her first 
name was; but in B Comp’ny we called her 
‘Ould Pummeloe,’ by reason of her figure, 
which was entirely cir-cum-fe-renshil. Like 
the big dhrum ! Now that woman — God rock 
her sowl to rest in glory! — was for everlastin* 
havin’ childher; an’ McKenna, whin the fifth 
or sixth come squallin’ on to the musther-roll, 
swore he wud number them off in future. 
But Ould Pummeloe she prayed av him to 
christen thim after the names of the stations 
they was borrun in. So there was Colaba 
McKenna and Muttra McKenna, an’ a whole 
presidency av other McKennas, an' little 
Jhansi, dancin’ over yonder. Whin the 
children wasn’t hornin’, they was dying; for, 
av our children die like sheep in these days, 
they died like flies thin. I lost me own little 
Shad — but no matther. ’Tis long ago, and 
Mrs. Mulvaney niver had another. 

“I’m digresshin. Wan divil’s hot summer, 
there come an order from some mad ijjit, 
whose name I misremember, for the rigimint 
to go up-country. May be they wanted to 
know how the new rail carried throops. They 
knew! On me sowl, they knew before they 
was done! Ould Pummeloe had just buried 
Muttra McKenna; an’ the season bein’ on- 


216 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


wholesim, only little Jhansi McKenna, who 
was four years ould thin, was left on hand. 

“Five children gone in fourteen months. 
*Twas haard, wasn’t ut? 

“So we wint up to our new station in that 
blazin’ heat — may the curse av Saint Law- 
rence conshume the man who gave the ordherf 
Will I ivir forget that move? They gave us 
two wake thrains to the rigimint; an’ we was 
eight hunder’ and sivinty strong. There was 
A. B. C. an' D. companies in the secon’ thrain, 
wid twelve women, no orficers’ ladies, an’ 
thirteen childher. We was to go six hundher* 
miles, an’ railways was new in thim days. 
Whin we had been a night in the belly av the 
thrain — the men ragin’ in their shirts, an’ 
dhrinkin’ anything they could find, an’ eatin’ 
bad fruit-stuff whin they cud, for we cudn’t 
stop em — I was a corpr’il thin — the cholera 
bruk out wid the dawnin’ av the day. 

“Pray to the saints, you may niver see 
cholera in a throop thrain! ’Tis like the judg- 
ment av God hittin’ down from the naked sky! 
We run into a rest-camp — as ut might have 
been Ludianny, but not by any means so 
comfortable. The orficer commandin’ sent a 
telegrapt up the line, three hundher’ mile up, 
askin’ for help. Faith, we wanted ut, for ivry 
sowl av the followers ran for the dear life as 
soon as the thrain stopped; an’ by the time 
that telegrapt was writ, there wasn’t a naygur 
in the station exceptin’ the telegrapt clerk— 
an’ he only bekase he was held down to his 
chair by the scuff av his sneakin’ black neck. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 217 


Thin the day began wid the noise in the car- 
r’ges, an’ the rattle avthe men on the platform 
failin’ over, arms an’ all, as they stud for to 
answer the comp’ny muster-roll before goin’ 
over to the camp. ’Tisn’t for me to say what 
like the cholera was like. Maybe the doctor 
cud ha’ tould, av he hadn’t dropped on to the 
platform from the door av a carriage where he 
was takin’ out the dead. He died wid the 
rest. Some bhoys had died in the night. We 
tuk out sivin and twenty more was sickenin’ 
as we tuk thim. The women was huddled up 
any ways, screamin’ wid fear. 

“Sez the commandin’ orficer whose name I 
misremember: ‘Take the women over to that 
tope av trees yonder. Get thim out av the 
camp. ’Tis no place for thim. ’ 

“Quid Pummeloe was sittin’ on her beddin’- 
rowl, tryin’ to kape little Jhansi quiet. ‘Go 
off to that tope!’ sez the orficer. ‘Go out av 
the men’s way!’ 

“ ‘Be damned av I do!’ sez Quid Pummeloe, 
an’ little Jhansi, squatting’ by her mother’s 
side, sneaks out: ‘Be damned av I do, tu.' 
Thin Quid Pummeloe turns to the woman and 
sez: ‘Are ye goin’ to let the bhoys die, while 
you’re picnickin’, ye sluts?’ sea she. ‘’Tis 
wather they want. Come on an’ help.’ 

“Wid that, she turns up her sleeves an’ steps 
out for a well behind the rest-camp — little 
Jhansi trottin’ behind wid a lotah an’ string, 
an’ the other women followin’ like lambs with 
horse-buckets and cookin’ degchies. Whin all 
the things was full Quid Pummeloe marches 


218 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


back into camp — ’twas like a battlefield wid 
all the glory missin’ — at the hid av the rigi- 
mint av women. 

“ ‘McKenna, me man!’ she sez, wid a voice 
on her like grand-roun’s challenge, ‘tell the 
bhoys to be quiet, Ould Pummeloe’s acomin* 
to look afther thim — wid free dhrinks. ’ 

“Thin we cheered, and the cheerin’ in the 
lines was louder than the noise av the poor 
divils wid the sickness on thim. But not 
much. 

“You see, we was a new an’ raw rigimint in 
those days, an’ we cud make neither head 
nor tail av the sickness; an’ so we was use- 
less. The men was goin’ roun’ an’ about like 
dumb sheep, waitin’ for the nex’ man to fall 
over, an’ sayin’ undher their spache: ‘Fwhat 
is ut? In the name av God fwhat is ut?’ 
’Twas horrible. But through ut all, up an’ 
down, an’ down an’ up, wint Ould Pummeloe 
an’ little Jhansi — all we cud see av the baby, 
undher a dead man’s helmet wid the chin-strap 
swingin’ about her little stummick — up an’ 
down wid the wather and fwhat brandy there 
was. 

“Now an’ thin, Ould Pummeloe, the tears 
runnin’ down her fat, red face, sez: ‘My bhoys, 
me poor, dead darlin’ bhoys!’ But, for the 
most, she was thryin’ to put heart into the 
men an’ kape thim stiddy; and little Jhansi 
was tellin’ thim all they wud be ‘better in the 
mornin’.’ ’Twas a thrick she’d picked up 
from hearing Ould Pummelof. whin Muttra 
was burnin’ out wid fever. In the mornin’ ! 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 219 


’Twas the iverlastin’ morning at St. Peter’s 
Gate, was the mornin’ for seven an’ twenty 
good men; an’ twenty more was sick to the 
death in that bitter, burnin’ sun. But the 
women worked like angils, as I’ve said, an’ 
the men like divils, till two doctors come down 
from above, an’ we was rescued. 

“But, jist before that. Quid Pummeloe, on 
her knees over a bhoy in my squad — right-cot 
man to me he was in the barrick — tellin’ him 
the worrud av the Church that niver failed a 
man yet, sez: ‘Hould me up, bhoys! I’m 
feelin’ bloody sick!’ ’Twas the sun, not the 
cholera, did ut. She misremembered she was 
only wearin’ her ould black bonnet, an’ she 
died wid ‘McKenna, me man,’ houldin’ her up, 
an’ the bhoys howled whin they buried her. 

“That night a big wind blew, an’ blew, an’ 
blew the tents flat. But it blew the cholera 
away an’ niver another case there was all the 
while we was waiting — ten days in quarantin’. 
Av you will belave me, the thrack of the sick- 
ness in the camp was for all the worruld the 
thrack of a man walkin’ four times in a figur- 
av-eight through the tents. They say ’tis the 
Wandherin’ Jew takes the cholera wid him. 
I believe ut. 

“An’ that,’’ said Mulvaney illogically, “is 
the cause why little Jhansi McKenna is hvhat 
she is. She was brought up by the quarter mas- 
ter sergeant’s wife whin McKenna died, but she 
b’longs to B. Comp’ny; an’ this tale I’m tellin’ 
you — wid a proper appreciashun av Jhansi Mc- 
Kenna — I’ve belted into every recruity av the 


220 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


comp’ny as he was drafted. Faith ’twas me 
belted Corp’ril Slane into askin’ the girl!” 

“Not really?” 

“Man, I did! She’s no beauty to look at, 
but she’s Ould Pummeloe’s daughter, an’ ’tis 
my juty to provide for her. Just before Slane 
got his wan-eight a day, I sez to him: ‘Slane,* 
sez I, ‘to-morrow ’twill be insubordinashin av 
me to chastise you ; but, by the sowl av Ould 
Pummeloe, who is now in glory, av you don’t 
give my your worrud to ask Jhansi McKenna 
at wanst. I’ll peel the flesh off yer bones wid 
a brass huk to-night. ‘’Tis a disgrace to B. 
Comp’ny she’s been single so long!’ sez I. 
Was I goin’ to let a three-year-ould preshume 
to discoorse wid me; my will bein’ set? No! 
Slane wint an’ asked her. He’s a good bhoy 
is Slane. Wan av these days he’ll get into the 
com’ssariat and dhrive a boggy wid his — sav- 
in’s. So I provided for Ould Pummeloe’s 
daughter; an’ now you go along an’ dance 
again wid her.” 

And I did. 

I felt a respect for Miss Jhansi KcKenna; 
and I went to her wedding later on. 

Perhaps I will tell you about that one of 
these days. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 221 


IN THE PRIDE OF HIS YOUTH. 

* ‘Stopped in the straight when the race was his own! 

Look at him cutting it — cur to the bone !” 

“Ask, ere the youngster be rated and chidden, 

What did he carry and how was he ridden? 

Maybe they used him too much at the start ; 

Maybe Fate’s weight-cloths are breaking his heart.” 

— Life’s Handicap. 

When I was telling you of the joke that 
The Worm played off on the senior subaltern, 
I promised a somewhat similar tale, but with 
all the jest left out. This is that tale. 

Dicky Hatt was kidnapped in his early, early 
youth — neither by landlady’s daughter, house- 
maid, barmaid, nor cook, but by a girl so 
nearly of his own caste that only a woman 
could have said she was just the least little bit 
in the world below it. This happened a 
month before he came out to India, and five 
days after his one-and-twentieth birthday. 
The girl was nineteen — six years older than 
Dicky in the things of this world, that is to 
say — and, for the time, twice as foolish as he. 

Excepting, always, falling off a horse there 
is nothing more fatally easy than marriage 
before the registrar. The ceremony costs less 
than fifty shillings, and is remarkably like 
walking into a pawnshop. After the declara- 
tions of residence have been put in, four min- 


222 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


utes will cover the rest of the proceedings — 
fees, attestation, and all. Then the registrar 
slides the blotting-pad over the names, and 
says grimly with his pen between his teeth : 
“Now you’re man and wife;” and the couple 
walk out into the street, feeling as if some- 
thing were horribly illegal somewhere. 

But that ceremony holds and can drag a man 
to his undoing just as thoroughly as the “long 
as ye both shall live” curse from the altar-rails, 
with the bridesmaids giggling behind, and 
“The Voice that breathed o’er Eden” lifting 
the roof off. In this manner was Dicky Hatt 
kidnapped, and he considered it vastly fine, for 
he had received an appointment in India which 
carried a magnificent salary from the home 
point of view. The marriage was to be kept 
secret for a year. Then Mrs. Dicky Hatt was 
to come out and the rest of life was to be a 
glorious golden mist. That was how they 
sketched it under the Addison Road Station 
lamps; and, after one short month, came 
Gravesend and Dicky steaming out to his new 
life, and the girl crying in a thirty-shillings-a- 
week bed-and-living-room, in a back street off 
Montpelier Square, near the Knightsbridge 
Barracks. 

But the country that Dicky came to was a 
hard land where “men” of twenty-one were 
reckoned very small boys, indeed, ^nd life was 
expensive. The salary that loomed so large 
six thousand miles away did not go far. Par- 
ticularly when Dicky divided it by two, and re- 
mitted more than the fair half, at i-6 to Mont- 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 223 

pelier Square. One hundred and thirty-five 
rupees out of three hundred and thirty is not 
much to live on ; but it was absurd to suppose 
that Mrs. Hatt could exist forever on the 
held back by Dicky from his outfit allowance. 
Dicky saw this and remitted at once ; always 
remembering that Rs. 700 were to be paid, 
twelve months later, for a first-class passage 
out for a lady. When you add to these trifling 
details the natural instincts of a boy beginning 
a new life in a new country and longing to go 
about and enjoy himself, and the necessity for 
grappling with strange work — which, properly 
speaking, should take up a boy’s undivided 
attention — you will see that Dicky started 
handicapped. He saw it himself for a breath 
or two; but he did not guess the full beauty of 
his future. 

As the hot weather began, the shackles 
settled on him and ate into his flesh. First 
would come letters — big, crossed, seven-sheet 
letters — from his wife, telling him how she 
longed to see him, and what a heaven upon 
earth would be their property when they met. 
Then some boy of the chummery wherein 
Dicky lodged would pound on the door of his 
bare little room, and tell him to come out to 
look at a pony — the very thing to suit him. 
Dicky could not afford ponies. He had to 
explain this. Dicky could not afford living in 
the chummery, modest as it was. He had to 
explain this before he moved to a single room 
next the office where he worked all day. He 
kept house on a green oilcloth table cover, one 


22i PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


chair, one charpoy, one photograph, one tooth- 
glass, very strong and thick, a seven-rupee 
eight-anna filter, and messing by contract at 
thirty-seven rupees a month, which last item 
was extortion. He had no punkah^ for a 
punkah costs fifteen rupees a month : but he 
slept on the roof of the office with all his 
wife’s letters under his pillow. Now and 
again he was asked out to dinner where he got 
both a punkah and an iced drink. But this 
was seldom, for people objected to recognizing 
a boy who had evidently the instincts of a 
Scotch tallow-chandler, and who lived in such 
a nasty fashion. Dicky could not subscribe to 
any amusement, so he found no amusement 
except the pleasure of turning over his bank 
book and reading what it said about “loans on 
approved security.” That cost nothing. He 
remitted through a Bombay bank, by the way, 
and the Station knew nothing of his private 
affairs. 

Every month he sent home all he could 
possibly spare for his wife — and for another 
reason which was expected to explain itself 
shortly and would require more money. 

About this time, Dicky was overtaken v/ith 
the nervous haunting fear that besets married 
men when they are out of sorts. He had no 
pension to look to. What if he should die 
suddenly, and leave his wife unprovided for? 
The thought used to lay hold of him in the 
still, hot nights on the roof, till the shaking of 
his heart made him think that he was going to 
die then and there of heart disease. Now 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 225 


this is a frame of mind which no boy has a 
right to know. It is a strong man’s trouble; 
but, coming when it did, it nearly drove poor 
punkahA^s^^y perspiring Dicky Hatt mad. He 
could tell no one about it. 

A certain amount of “screw” is as necessary 
for a man as for a billiard ball. It makes 
them both do wonderful things. Dicky needed 
money badly, and he worked for it like a 
horse. But, naturally, the men who owned 
him knew that a boy can live very comfortably 
on a certain income — pay in India is a matter 
of age, not merit, you see, and, if their partic- 
ular boy wished to work like two boys, busi- 
ness forbid that they should stop him ! But 
business forbid that they should give him an 
increase of pay at his present ridiculously 
immature age ! So Dicky won certain rises of 
salary — ample for a boy — not enough for a 
wife and a child — certainly too little for the 
seven hundred-rupee passage that he and Mrs. 
Hatt had discussed so lightly once upon a time. 
And with this he was forced to be content. 

Somehow, all his money seemed to fade 
away in home drafts and the crushing ex- 
change, and the tone of the home letters 
changed and grew querulous. “Why would- 
n’t Dicky have his wife and the baby out? 
Surely, he had a salary — a fine salary — and it 
was too bad of him to enjoy himself in India. 
But would he — could he — make the next draft 
a little more elastic?” Here followed a list of 
baby’s kit, as long as a Parsee’s bill. Then 
Dicky, whose heart yearned to his wife and the 

15 Plain Tales 


226 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


little son he had never seen — which, again, is 
a feeling no boy is entitled to — enlarged the 
draft and wrote queer half-boy, half-man 
letters, saying that life was not so enjoyable 
after all and would the little wife wait yet a 
little longer? But the little wife, however 
much she approved of money, objected to 
waiting, and there was a strange, hard sort of 
ring in her letters that Dicky didn’t under- 
stand. How could he, poor boy? 

Later on still — just as Dicky had been told 
— apropos of another youngster who had 
“made a fool of himself,” as the saying is — 
that matrimony would not only ruin his further 
chances of advancement, but would lose him 
his present appointment — came the news that 
the baby, his own little, little son, had died, 
and, behind this, forty lines of an angry 
woman’s scrawl, saying that death might have 
been averted if certain things, all costing 
money, had been done, or if the mother and 
the baby had been with Dicky. The letter 
struck at Dicky’s naked heart but, not being 
officially entitled to a baby, he could show no 
sign of trouble. 

How Dicky won through the next four 
months, and what hope he kept alight to force 
him into his work, no one dare say. He 
pounded on, the seven-hundred-rupee passage 
as far away as ever, and his style of living un- 
changed, except when he launched into a new 
filter. There was the strain of his office-work, 
and the strain of his remittances, and the 
knowledge of his boy’s death, which touched 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 227 


the boy more, perhaps, than it would have 
touched a man and beyond all, the enduring 
strain of his daily life. Gray-headed seniors 
who approved of his thrift and his fashion of 
denying himself everything pleasant, reminded 
him of the old saw that says : 

“ If a youth would be distinguished in his art, art, art, 

He must keep the girls away from his heart, heart, 
heart.” 

And Dicky, who fancied he had been 
through every trouble that a man is permitted 
to know, had to laugh and agree ; with the 
last line of his balanced bank book jingling in 
his head day and night. 

But he had one more sorrow to digest before 
the end. There arrived a letter from the 
little wife — the natural sequence of the others 
if Dicky had only known it — and the burden of 
that letter was “gone with a handsomer man 
than you.” It was a rather curious produc- 
tion, without stops, something like this: “She 
was not going to wait forever, and the baby 
was dead, and Dick was only a boy, and he 
would never set eyes on her again, and why 
hadn’t he waved his handkerchief to her when 
he left Gravesend, and God was her judge, she 
was a wicked woman, but Dicky was worse, 
enjoying himself in India, and this other man 
loved the ground she trod on, and would Dicky 
ever forgive her, for she would never forgive 
Dicky; and there was no address to write to.’* 

Instead of thanking his stars that he was 
free, Dicky discovered exactly how an injured 


228 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


husband feels — again, not at all the knowledge 
to which a boy is entitled — for his mind went 
back to his wife as he remembered her in the 
thirty-shilling “suite” in Montpelier Square, 
when the dawn of his last morning in England 
was breaking, and she was crying in the bed. 
Whereat he rolled about on his bed and bit his 
fingers. He never stopped to think whether, 
if he had met Mrs. Hatt after those two years, 
he would have discovered that he and she had 
grown quite different and new persons. This, 
theoretically, he ought to have done. He 
spent the night after the English mail came in 
rather severe pain. 

Next morning, Dicky Hatt felt disinclined 
to work. He argued that he had missed the 
pleasure of youth. He was tired, and he had 
tasted all the sorrow in life before twenty- 
three. His honor was gone — that was the 
man ; and now he, too, would go to the devil 
— that was the boy in him. So he put his head 
down on the green oil-cloth table-cover, and 
wept before resigning his post, and all it 
offered. 

But the reward of his services came. He 
was given three days to reconsider himself, 
and the head of the establishment, after some 
telegraphings, said that it was a most unusual 
step, but, in view of the ability that Mr. Hatt 
had displayed at such and such a time, at such 
and such junctures, he was in a position to offer 
him an infinitely superior post — first on pro- 
bation, and later, in the natural course of 
things on confirmation. “And how much does 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 229 


the post carry?” said Dicky. “Six hundred 
and fifty rupees,” said the head slowly, ex- 
pecting to see the young man sink with grati- 
tude and joy. 

And it came then ! The seven-hundred rupee 
passage, and enough to have saved the wife, 
and the little son, and to have allowed of 
assured and open marriage, came then. Dicky 
burst into a roar of laughter — laughter he 
could not check — nasty, jangling merriment 
that seemed as if it would go on forever. 
When he had recovered himself he said, quite 
seriously: “I’m tired of work. I’m an old 
man now. It’s about time I retired. And I 
will. ’ ’ 

“The boy’s mad!” said the Head. 

I think he was right ; but Dicky Hatt never 
reappeared to settle the question. 


230 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


PIG. 

Go, stalk the red deer o’er the heather, 

Ride, follow the fox if you can ! 

But, for pleasure and profit together, 

Allow me the hunting of Man — 

The chase of the Human, the search for the Soul 
To its ruin — the hunting of Man. 

— The Old Shikarri. 

I believe the difference began in the matter 
of a horse, with a twist in his temper, whom 
Pinecofhn sold to Naffer ton and by whom 
Nafferton was nearly slain. There may have 
been other causes of offense ; the horse was 
the official stalking-horse. Nafferton was very 
angry; but Pinecofhn laughed and said that 
he had never guaranteed the beast’s manner. 
Nafferton laughed, too, though he vowed that 
he would write off his fall against Pinecofhn if 
he waited five years. Now, a Dalesman, from 
beyond Skipton will forgive an injury when 
the Strid lets a man live; but a South Devon 
man is as soft as a Dartmoor bog. You can 
see from their names that Nafferton had the 
race-advantage of Pinecoffin. He was a pecu- 
liar man, and his notions of humor were cruel. 
He taught me a new and fascinating form of 
shikar. He hounded Pinecoffin from Mithan- 
kot to Jagcadri,and from Gurgaon to Abbotta- 
bad — up and a ross the Punjab, a large prov- 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 231 


ince and in places remarkably dry. He said 
that he had no intention of allowing assistant 
commissioners to “sell his pups” in the shape 
of ramping, screaming countrybreds, without 
making their lives a burden to them. 

Most assistant commissioners develop a bent 
for some special work after their first hot 
weather in the country. The boys with diges- 
tions hope to write their names large on the 
frontier, and struggle for dreary places like 
Bannu and Kohat. The bilious ones climb 
into the secretariat, which is very bad for the 
liver. Others are bitten with a mania for dis- 
trict work, Ghuzni vide coins or Persian poetry; 
while some, who come of farmers’ stock, find 
that the smell of the earth after the rains gets 
into their blood, and calls them to “develop 
the resources of the province.” These men 
are enthusiasts. Pinecoffin belonged to their 
class. He knew a great many facts bearing on 
the cost of bullocks and temporary wells, and 
opium scrapers, and what happens if you burn 
too much rubbish on a field, in the hope of 
enriching used-up soil. All the Pinecoffins 
come of a landholding breed, and so the land 
only took back her own again. Unfortunately 
— most unfortunately for Pinecoffin — he was 
a civilian as well as a farmer. Nafferton 
watched him, and thought about the horse. 
Nafferton said :“See me chase that boy till he 
drops!” I said: “You can’t get your knife 
into an assistant commissioner.” Nafferton 
told me that I did not understand the admin- 
istration of the province. 


232 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

Our government is rather peculiar. It 
gushes on the agricultural and general infor- 
mation side, and will supply a moderately re- 
spectable man with all sorts of “economic 
statistics,” if he speaks to it prettily. For in- 
stance, you are interested in gold-washings in 
the sands of the Sutlej. You pull the string, 
and find that it wakes up half a dozen depart- 
ments, and finally communicates, say, with a 
friend of yours in the Telegraph, who once 
wrote some notes on the custom of the gold 
washers when he was on construction-work in 
their part of the empire. He may or may not 
be pleased at being ordered to write out every- 
thing he knows for your benefit. This depends 
on his temperament. The bigger man you 
are, the more information and the greater 
trouble can you raise. 

Nafferton was not a big man; but he had 
the reputation of being very “earnest.” An 
“earnest” man can do much with a govern- 
ment. There was an earnest man once who 
nearly wrecked . . . but all India knows that 
story. I am not sure what real “earnestness” 
is. A very fair imitation can be manufactured 
by neglecting to dress decently, by mooning 
about in a dreamy, misty sort of way, by tak- 
ing office- work home after staying in office till 
seven, and by receiving crowds of native gen- 
tlemen on Sundays. This is one sort of 
“earnestness. ” 

Nafferton cast about for a peg whereon to 
hang his earnestness, and for a string that 
would communicate with Pinecoffin. He 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 233 

found both. They were Pig. Nafferton be- 
came an earnest inquirer after Pig. He in- 
formed the government that he had a scheme 
whereby a very large percentage of the British 
army in India could be fed, at a very large 
saving, on pig. Then he hinted that Pine- 
coffin might supply him with the “varied in- 
formation necessary to the proper inception of 
the scheme. ’ ’ So the government wrote on 
the back of the letter: Instruct Mr. Pinecoffin 
to furnish Mr. Nafferton with any information 
in his power.” Government is very prone to 
writing things on the backs of letters which, 
later, lead to trouble and confusion. 

Nafferton had not the faintest interest in 
pig, but he knew that Pinecoffin would flounce 
into the trap. Pinecoffin was delighted at 
being consulted about pig. The Indian pig 
is not exactly an important factor in agricul- 
tural life; but Nafferton explained to Pinecoffin 
that there was room for improvement, and 
corresponded direct with that young man. 

You may think that is not much to be 
evolved from pig. It all depends how you set 
to work. Pinecoffin being a civilian and 
wishing to do things thoroughly, began with 
an essay on the primitive pig, the mythology 
of the pig, and the Dravidian pig. Nafferton 
filed that information — twenty-seven foolscap 
sheets — and wanted to know about the distribu- 
tion of the pig in the Punjab, and how it stood 
the plains in the hot weather. From this point 
onward, remember that I am giving you only 
the barest outlines of the affair — the guy- 


234 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


ropes, as it were, of the web that Nafferton 
spun round Pinecoffin. 

Pinecoffin made a colored pig-population map 
and collected observations on the compara- 
tive longevity of pig (a) in the sub-montane 
tracts of the Himalayas, and (d) in the 
Rechna Doab. Nafferton filed that, and asked 
what sort of people looked after pig. This 
started an ethnological excursus on swineherds, 
and drew from Pinecoffin long tables showing 
the proportion per thousand of the caste in the 
Derajat. Nafferton filed that bundle, and ex- 
plained that the figures which he wanted 
referred to the Cis-Sutlej states, where he un- 
derstood that pigs were very fine and large, and 
where he proposed to start a piggery. By this 
time, government had quite forgotten their 
instructions to Mr. Pinecoffin. They were 
like the gentlemen in Keats’ poem, who 
turned well-oiled wheels to skin other people. 
But Pinecoffin was just entering into the spirit 
of the pig-hunt, as Nafferton well knew he 
would do. He had a fair amount of work of 
his own to clear away; but he sat up of nights 
reducing pig to five places of decimals for the 
honor of his service. He was not going to 
appear ignorant of so easy a subject as pig. 

Then government sent him on special duty 
to Kohat, to “inquire into” the big, seven-foot, 
iron-shod spades of that district. People had 
been killing each other with those peaceful 
tools ; and government wished to know 
“whether a modified form of agricultural im- 
plement could not, tentatively, and as a tern- 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 235 


porary measure, be introduced among the 
agricultural population without needlessly or 
unduly exasperating the existing religious 
sentiments of the peasantry.” 

Between those spades and Nafferton’s pig, 
Pinecoffin was rather heavily burdened. 

Nafferton now began to take up *'(a) The 
food-supply of the indigenous pig, with a view 
to the improvement of its capacities as a flesh- 
former. (^) The acclimatization of the exotic 
pig, maintaining its distinctive peculiarities.” 

Pinecoffin replied exhaustively that the ex- 
otic pig would become merged in the indig- 
enous type ; and quoted horse-breeding statis- 
tics to prove this. The side issue was debated, 
at great length on Pinecoffin’s side, till Naffer- 
ton owned that he had been in the wrong, and 
moved the previous question. When Pinecoffin 
had quite written himself out about flesh- 
formers, and fibrins, and glucose, and the 
nitrogenous constituents of maize and lucerne, 
Nafferton raised the question of expense. By 
this time Pinecoffin, who had been transferred 
from Kohat, had developed a pig theory of his 
own, which he stated in thirty-three folio 
pages — all carefully filed by Nafferton, who 
asked for more. 

These things took ten months, and Pine- 
coffin’s interest in the potential piggery 
seemed to die down after he had stated his 
own views. But Nafferton bombarded him 
with letters on ‘‘the imperial aspect of the 
scheme, as tending to officialize the sale of 
pork, and thereby calculated to give offense to 


236 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


the Mohammedan population of Upper India. 
He guessed that Pinecoffin would want some 
broad, free hand work after his niggling, 
stippling, decimal details. Pinecoffin han- 
dled the latest development of the case in 
masterly style, and proved that no “popular 
ebullition of excitement was to be appre- 
hended. “ Nafferton said that there was noth- 
ing like civilian insight in matters of this kind, 
and lured him up a bypath — “the possible prof- 
its to accrue to the government from the sale 
of hog-bristles. “ There is an extensive litera- 
ture of hog-bristles, and the shoe, brush, and 
colorman’s trades recognize more varieties of 
bristles than you would think possible. After 
Pinecoffin had wondered a little at Nafferton ’s 
rage for information, he sent back a mono- 
graph, fifty-one pages, on “Products of the 
Pig.” This led him, under Nafferton's tender 
handling, straight to the Cawnpore factories, 
the trade in hog-skin for saddles — and thence to 
the tanners. Pinecoffin wrote that pomegran- 
ate-seed was the best cure for hog-skin, and 
suggested — for the past fourteen months had 
wearied him — that Nafferton should “raise 
his pigs before he tanned them.” 

Naferton went back to the second section of 
his fifth question. How could the exotic pig 
be brought to give as much pork as it did in 
the west and yet “assume the essentially hir- 
sute characteristics of its oriental congener?” 
Pinecoffin felt dazed, for he had forgotten what 
he had written sixteen months before, and fan- 
cied that he tvas about to reopen the entire 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 237 


question. He was too far involved in the 
hideous tangle to retreat, and, in a weak mo- 
ment, he wrote: “Consult my first letter.” 
Which related to the Dravidian pig. As a 
matter of fact, Pinecoffin had still to reach the 
acclimatization stage; having gone off on a 
side-issue on the merging of types. 

Then Nafferton really unmasked his batter- 
ies! He complained to the government, in 
stately language, of “the paucity of help 
accorded to me in my earnest attempts to start 
a potentially remunerative industry, and the 
flippancy with which my requests for infor- 
mation are treated by a gentleman whose 
pseudo-scholarly attainments should at least 
have taught him the primary differences be- 
tween the Dravidian and the Berkshire variety 
of the genus Sus. If I am to understand that 
the letter to which he refers me contains his 
serious views on the acclimatization of a valu- 
able, though possibly Tincleanly, animal, I 
am reluctantly compelled to believe,” etc., etc. 

There was a new man at the head of the de- 
partment of castigation. The wretched Pine- 
coffin was told that the service was made for 
the country, and not the country for the ser- 
vice, and that he had better begin to supply 
information about pigs. 

Pinecoffin answered insanely that he had 
written everything that could be written about 
pig, and that some furlough was due to him. 

Nafferton got a copy of that letter, and sent 
it, with the essay on the Dravidian pig, to a 
down-country paper which printed both in full. 


238 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS; 


The essay was rather highflown; but if the 
editor had seen the stacks of paper, in Pine- 
coffin’s handwriting, on Nafferton’s table, he 
would not have been so sarcastic about the 
“nebulous discursiveness and blatant self- 
sufficiency of the modern com^Qtiiion-wallak, 
and his utter inability to grasp the practical 
issues of a practical question.’’ Many friends 
cut out these remarks and sent them to Pine- 
coffin. 

I have already stated that Pinecoffin came of 
a soft stock. This last stroke frightened and 
shook him. He could not understand it ; but 
he felt that he had been, somehow, shamelessly 
betrayed by Nafferton. He realized that he 
had wrapped himself up in the pigskin without 
need, and that he could not well set himself 
right with his government. All his acquaint- 
ances asked after his “nebulous discursiveness” 
or his “blatant self-sufficiency,’’ and this made 
him miserable. 

He took a train and went to Nafferton, whom 
he had not seen since the pig business began. 
He also took the cutting from the paper, and 
blustered feebly and called Nafferton names, 
and then died down to a watery-weak protest 
of the “I-say-it’s-too-bad-you-know” order. 

Nafferton was very sympathetic. 

“I’m afraid I’ve given you a good deal of 
trouble, haven’t I?’’ said he. 

“Trouble!’’ whimpered Pinecoffin; “I don’t 
mind the trouble so much, though that was bad 
enough ; but what I resent is this showing up 
in print. It will stick to me like a burr all 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 239 


through my service. And I did do my best 
for your interminable swine. It’s too bad of 
you, on my soul it is!” 

“I don’t know,” said Nafferton; ‘‘have you 
ever been stuck with a horse? It isn’t the 
money I mind, though that is bad enough ; but 
what I resent is the chaff that follows, espe- 
cially from the boy who stuck me. But I think 
we’ll cry quits now.” 

Pinecoffin found nothing to say save bad 
words; and Nafferton smiled ever so sweetly, 
and asked him to dinner. 


^40 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


THE ROUTE OF THE WHITE HUS- 
SARS. 

It was not in the open fight 
We threw away the sword, 

But in the lonely watching 
In the darkness by the ford. 

The waters lapped, the night- wind blew. 

Full -armed the fear was born and grew. 

And we were flying ere we knew 
From panic in the night. 

— Beoni Bar. 

Some people hold that an English cavalry 
regiment cannot run. This is a mistake. I 
have seen four hundred and thirty-seyen 
sabers flying over the face of the country in 
abject terror — have seen the best regiment 
that ever drew bridle wiped off the army list 
for the space of two hours. If you repeat this 
tale to the White Hussars, they will, in all 
probability, treat you severely. They are not 
proud of the incident. 

You may know the White Hussars by their 
“side” which is greater than that of the cav- 
alry regiments on the roster. If this is not a 
sufficient mark, you may know them by their 
old brandy. It has been sixty years in the 
mess and is worth going far to taste. Ask 
for the “McGaire” old brandy, and see that 
you get it. If the mess sergeant thinks that 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 241 


you are uneducated, and that the genuine 
article will be lost on you, he will treat you 
accordingly. He is a good man. But, when 
you are at mess, you must never talk to your 
hosts about forced marches or long-distance 
rides. The mess are very sensitive; and if 
they think that you are laughing at them, will 
tell you so. 

As the White Hussars say, it was all the 
colonel’s fault. He was a new man, and he 
ought never to have taken the command. He 
said that the regiment was not smart enough. 
This to the White Hussars, who knew they 
could walk round any Horse and through any 
Guns, and over any Foot on the face of the 
earth! That insult was the first cause of 
offense. 

Then the colonel cast the drum-horse — the 
drum horse of the White Hussars! Perhaps 
you do not see what an unspeakable crime he 
had committed. I will try to make it clear. 
The soul of the regiment lives in the drum- 
horse who carries the silver kettle-drums. He 
is nearly always a big piebald Waler. That is 
a point of honor ; and a regiment will spend 
anything you please on a piebald. He is 
beyond the ordinary laws of casting. His 
work is very light, and he only maneuvers at 
a foot-pace. Wherefore, so long as he can 
step out and look handsome, his well-being is 
assured. He knows more about the regiment 
than the adjutant, and could not make a mis- 
take if he tried. 

The drum-horse of the White Hussars was 

16 Plain Tales 


242 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


only eighteen years old, and perfectly equal 
to his duties. He had at least six years’ more 
work in him, and carried himself with all the 
pomp and dignity of a drum- major of the 
guards. The regiment had paid Rs. 1,200 for 
him. 

But the colonel said that he must go, and he 
was cast in due form and replaced by a washy 
bay beast as ugly as a mule, with a ewe-neck, 
rat-tail, and cow-hocks. The drummer 
detested that animal, and the best of the 
band- horses put back their ears and showed the 
whites of their eyes at the very sight of him. 
They knew him for an upstart and no gentle- 
man. I fancy that the colonel’s ideas of 
smartness extended to the band, and that he 
wanted to make it take part in the regular 
parade movements. A cavalry band is a sacred 
thing. It only turns out for commanding 
officers’ parades, and the band-master is one 
degree more important than the colonel. He 
is high priest and the “Keel Row’’ is his holy 
song. The “Keel Row’’ is the cavalry trot ; 
and the man who has never heard that tune 
rising, high and shrill, above the rattle of the 
regiment going past the saluting-base has 
something yet to hear and understand. 

When the colonel cast the drum-horse of the 
White Hussars there was nearly a mutiny. 

The officers were angry, the regiment were 
furious, and the bandsmen swore — like troop- 
ers. The drum-horse was going to be put up 
to auction — public auction — to be bought, per- 
haps, by a Parsee and put into a cart! It was 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 243 


worse than exposing- the inner life of the regi- 
ment to the whole worl4, or selling the mess- 
plate to a Jew — a black Jew. 

The colonel was a mean man and a bully. 
He knew what the regiment thought about his 
action ; and, when the troopers offered to buy 
the drum-horse, he said that their offer was 
mutinous and forbidden by the regulations. 

But one of the subalterns — Hogan- Yale, an 
Irishman — bought the drum-horse for Rs. i6o 
at the sale; and the colonel was wroth. Yale 
professed repentance — he was unnaturally 
submissive — and said that, as he had only 
made the purchase to save the horse from 
possible ill-treatment and starvation, he would 
now shoot him and end the business. This 
appeared to soothe the colonel, for he wanted 
the drum-horse disposed of. He felt that he 
had made a mistake, and could not of course 
acknowledge it. Meantime, the presence of 
the drum-horse was an annoyance to him. 

Yale took to himself a glass of the old brandy, 
three cheroots, and his friend, Martyn; and 
they all left the mess together. Yale and 
Martyn conferred for two hours in Yale’s quar- 
ters ; but only the bull-terrier who keeps watch 
over Yale’s boot trees knows what they said. 
A horse, hooded and sheeted to his ears, left 
Yale’s stables and was taken, very unwillingly, 
into the civil lines. Yale’s groom went with 
him. Two men broke into the regimental 
theater and took several paint-pots and some 
large scenery brushes. Then night fell over 
the cantonments, and there was a noise as of 


244 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


a horse kicking his loose-box to pieces in Yale’s 
stables. Yale had a big, old, white Waler 
trap horse. 

The next day was a Thursday, and the men, 
hearing that Yale was going to shoot the drum- 
horse in the evening, determined to give the 
beast a regular regimental funeral — a finer 
one than they would have given the colonel 
had he died just then. They got a bullock- 
cart and some sacking, and mounds and 
mounds of roses, and the body, under sacking, 
was carried out to the place where the anthrax 
cases were cremated; two-thirds of the regi- 
ment followed. There was no band, but they 
all sang “The Place where the old Horse 
died” as something respectful and appropriate 
to the occasion. When the corpse was dumped 
into the grave and the men began throwing 
down armfuls of roses to cover it, the farrier- 
sergeant ripped out an oath and said aloud : 
“Why, it ain’t the drum-horse any more than 
it’s me!’’ The troop-sergeant-majors asked 
him whether he had left his head in the can- 
teen. The farrier-sergeant said that he knew 
the drum-horse’s feet as well as he knew his 
own; but he was silenced when he saw the 
regimental number burned in on the poor 
stiff, upturned nearfore. 

Thus was the drum-horse of the White 
Hussars buried; the farrier-sergeant grumb- 
ling. The sacking that covered the corpse 
was smeared in places with black paint ; and 
the farrier-sergeant drew attention to this fact. 
But the troop-sergeant-major of E Troop 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 245 


kicked him severely on the shin, and told him 
that he was undoubtedly drunk. 

On the Monday following the burial, the 
colonel sought revenge on the White Hussars. 
Unfortunately, being at that time temporarily 
in command of the Station, he ordered a bri- 
gade field-day. He said that he wished to 
make the regiment “sweat for their damned 
insolence,” and he carried out his notion thor- 
oughly. That Monday was one of the hardest 
days in the memory of the White Hussars. 
They were thrown against a skeleton enemy, 
and pushed foiward, and withdrawn, and dis- 
mounted, and “scientifically handled” in every 
possible fashion over dusty country, till they 
sweated profusely. Their only amusement 
came late in the day when they fell upon the 
battery of horse artillery and chased it for two 
miles. This was a personal question, and most 
of the troopers had money on the event; the 
gunners saying openly that they had the legs 
of the White Hussars. They were wrong. A 
march-past concluded the campaign, and when 
the regiment got back to their lines, the men 
were coated with dirt from spur to chin-strap. 

The White Hussars have one great and pecu- 
liar privilege. They won it at Fontenoy, I think. 
Many regiments possess special rights such as 
wearing collars with undress uniform, or a bow 
of ribbon between the shoulders, or red and 
white roses in their helmets on certain days of 
the year. vSome rights are connected with 
regimental saints, and some with regimental 
successes. All are valued highly; but none 


246 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


SO highly as the right of the White Hussars to 
have the band playing when their horses are 
being watered in the lines. Only one tune is 
played, and that tune never varies. I don’t 
know its real name, but the White Hussars 
call it: “Take me to London again.” It 
sounds very pretty. The regiment would 
sooner be struck off the roster than forego 
their distinction. 

After the “dismiss” was sounded, the officers 
rode off home to prepare for stables; and the 
men filed into the lines, riding easy. That is 
to say, they opened their tight buttons, shifted 
their helmets, and began to joke or to swear 
as the humor took them; the more careful 
slipping off and easing girths and curbs. A 
good trooper values his mount exactly as much 
as he values himself, and believes, or should 
believe, that the two together are irresistible 
where women or men, girls or guns, are con- 
cerned. 

Then the orderly-officer gave the order: 
“Water horses, ” and the regiment loafed off 
to the squadron-troughs which were in rear of 
the stables and between these and the bar- 
racks. There were four huge troughs, one for 
each squadron, arranged en echelon, so that the 
whole regiment could water in ten minutes if 
it liked. But it lingered for seventeen, as a 
rule, while the band played. 

The band struck up as the squadrons filed 
off the troughs, and the men slipped their feet 
out of the stirrups and chaffed each other. 
The sun was just setting in a big, hot bed of 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


247 


red cloud, and the road to the civil lines seemed 
to run straight into the sun’s eye. There 
was a little dot on the road. It grew and 
grew till it showed as a horse, with a sort of 
gridiron thing on his back. The red cloud 
glared through the bars of the gridiron. 
Some of the troopers shaded their eyes with 
their hands and said: “What the mischief ’as 
that there ’orse got on ’im!’’ 

In another minute they heard a neigh that 
every soul — horse and man — in the regiment 
knew, and saw, heading straight toward the 
band, the dead drum-horse of the White Hus- 
sars! 

On his withers banged and bumped the 
kettle-drums draped in crape, and on his back, 
very stiff and soldierly, sat a bareheaded skel- 
eton. 

The band stopped playing, and, for a mo- 
ment, there was a hush. 

- Then some ohe in E Troop — men said 
it was the troop-sergeant-major — swung his 
horse round and yelled. No one can account 
exactly for what happened afterward; but it 
seems that, at least, one man in each troop set 
an example of panic, and the rest followed like 
sheep. The horses that had barely put their 
muzzles into the troughs reared and capered; 
but, as soon as the band broke, which it did 
when the ghost of the drum-horse was about 
a furlong distant, all behooves followed suit, 
and the clatter of the stampede — quite differ- 
ent from the orderly throb and roar of a move- 
ment on parade, or the rough horseplay of 


248 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


watering in camp — made them only more 
terrified. They felt that the men on their 
backs were afraid of something. When horses 
once know that, all is over except the butch- 
ery. 

Troop after troop turned from the troughs 
and ran — anywhere and everywhere — like spilt 
quicksilver. It was a most extraordinary 
spectacle, for men and horses were in all 
stages of easiness, and the carbine-buckets 
flopping against their sides urged the horses 
on. Men were shouting and cursing, and try- 
ing to pull clear of the band which was being 
chased by the drum-horse whose rider had 
fallen forward and seemed to be spurring for a 
wager. 

The colonel had gone over to the mess for a 
drink. Most of the officers were with him, 
and the subaltern of the day was preparing to 
go down to the lines, and receive the watering 
reports from the troop-sergeant-majors. When 
“Take me to London again” stopped, after 
twenty bars, every one in the mess said: 
“What on earth has happened?” A minute 
later they heard unmilitai*}^ noises, and saw, far 
across the plain, the White Hussars scattered, 
and broken, and flying. 

The colonel was speechless with rage, for he 
thought that the regiment had risen against 
him or was unanimously drunk. The band, a 
disorganized mob, tore past, and at its heels 
labored the drum-horse — the dead and buried 
drum-horse — with the jolting, clattering skel- 
eton. Hogan- Yale whispered softly to Mar- 



Yale and Martyn conferred for two hours.” — Page 243. 

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PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 249 


tyn: “No wire will stand that treatment,” and 
the band, which had doubled like a hare came 
back again. But the rest of the regiment 
was gone, was rioting all over the province, 
for the dusk had shut in and each man was 
howling to his neighbor that the drum-horse 
was on his flank. Troop-horses are far too 
tenderly treated as a rule. They can, on 
emergencies, do a great deal, even with seven- 
teen stone on their backs. As the troopers 
found out. 

How long this panic lasted I cannot say. I 
believe that when the moon rose the men saw 
they had nothing to fear, and, by twos and 
threes, and half-troops, crept back into canton- 
ments very much ashamed of themselves. 
Meantime, the drum-horse, disgusted at his 
treatment by old friends^ pulled up, wheeled 
round, and trotted up to the mess' veranda 
steps for bread. No one liked to run ; but no 
one cared to go forward till the colonel made a 
movement and laid hold of the skeleton’s foot. 
The band had halted some distance away, and 
now it came back slowly. The colonel called 
it, individually and collectively, every evil 
name that occurred to him at the time; for he 
had set his hand on the bosom of the drum- 
horse, and found flesh and blood. Then he 
beat the kettle-drums with his clinched fist, 
and discovered that they were but made of 
silver paper and bamboo. Next, still swear- 
ing, he tried to drag the skeleton out of the 
saddle, but found that it had been wired into 
the cantle. The sight of the colonel, with his 


250 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


arms round the skeleton’s pelvis and his knee 
in the old drum-horse’s stomach, was striking, 
not to say amusing. He worried the thing off 
in a minute or two, and threw it down on the 
ground, saying to the band: “Here, you curs, 
that’s what you’re afraid of.’’ The skeleton 
did not look pretty in the twilight. The band- 
sergeant seemed to recognize it, for he began 
to chuckle and choke. “Shall I take it away, 
sir?’’ said the band-sergeant. “Yes,’’ said the 
colonel, “take it to hell, and ride there your- 
selves!” 

The band-sergeant saluted, hoisted the skel- 
eton across his saddle-bow, and led off to the 
stables. Then the colonel began to make 
inquiries for the rest of the regiment, and the 
language he used was wonderful. He would 
disband the regiment— he would court-martial 
every soul in it— he would not command such 
a set of rabble, and so on, and so on. As the 
men dropped in, his language grew wilder, 
until at last it exceeded the utmost limits of 
free speech allowed even to a colonel of horse. 

Martyn took Hogan- Yale aside and sug- 
gested compulsory retirement from the service 
as a necessity when all was discovered, Mar- 
tyn was the weaker man of the two, Hogan- 
Yale put up his eye-brows, and remarked, 
firstly that he was the son of a lord, and sec- 
ondly, that he was as innocent as the babe 
unborn of the theatrical resurrection of the 
drum-horse. 

“My instructions,’’ said Yale, with a singu- 
larly sweet smile, “were that the drum-horse 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 251 

should be sent back as impressively as possible. 
I ask you, am I responsible if a mule-headed 
friend sends him back in such a manner as to 
disturb the peace of mind of a regiment of her 
majesty’s cavalry?” 

Martyn said: ‘‘You are a great man, and will 
in time become a general; but I’d give my 
chance of a troop to be safe out of this affair.” 

Providence saved Martyn and Hogan- Yale. 
The second in command led the colonel away 
to the little curtained alcove wherein the sub- 
alterns of the White Hussars were accustomed 
to play poker of nights ; and there, after many 
oaths on the colonel’s part, they talked to- 
gether in low tones. I fancy that the second in 
command must have represented the scare as 
the work of some trooper whom it would be 
hopeless to detect; and I know that he dwelt 
upon the sin and the shame of making a public 
laughing-stock of the scare. 

“They will call us,” said the second in com- 
mand, who had really a fine imagination, 
“they will call us the ‘Fly-by-Nights;’ they 
will call us the ‘Ghost Hunters;’ they will 
nickname us from one end of the army list to 
the other. All the explanations in the world 
won’t make outsiders understand that the offi- 
cers were away when the panic began. For 
the honor of the regiment and for your own 
sake keep this thing quiet.” 

The colonel was so exhausted with anger 
that soothing him down was not so difficult as 
might be imagined. He was made to see, 
gently and by degrees, that it was obviously 


252 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

impossible to court-martial the whole regiment, 
and equally impossible to proceed against any 
subaltern who, in his belief, had any concern 
in the hoax. 

“But the beast’s alive! He’s never been 
shot at ^11!” shouted the colonel. “It’s flat, 
flagrant disobedience! I’ve known a man 

broke for less, d d side less. They’re 

mocking me, I tell you, Mutman! They’re 
mocking me!” 

Once more the second in command set him- 
self to sooth the colonel, and wrestled with 
him for half an hour. At the end of that time 
the regimental sergeant-major reported him- 
self. The situation was rather novel to him ; 
but he was not a man to be put out by circum- 
stances. He saluted and said: “Regiment 
all come back, sir.” Then, to propitiate the 
colonel. “An’ none of the horses any the 
worse, sir.” 

The colonel only snorted and answered. 
“You’d better tuck the men into their cots, 
then, and see that they don’t wake up and cry 
in the night.” The sergeant withdrew. 

His little stroke of humor pleased the col- 
onel, and, further, he felt slightly ashamed of 
the language he had been using. The second 
in command worried him again, and the two 
sat talking far into the night. 

Next day but one, there was a commanding- 
officer’s parade, and the colonel harangued the 
White Hussars vigorously. The pith of his 
speech was that, since the drum-horse in his 
old age had proved himself capable of cutting 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 253 


Up the whole regiment, he should return to his 
post of pride at the head of the band, but the 
regiment were a set of ruffians with bad con- 
sciences. 

The White Hussars shouted, and threw 
everything movable about them into the air, 
and when the parade was over, they cheered 
the colonel till they couldn’t speak. No cheers 
were put up for Lieutenant Hogan- Yale, who 
smiled very sweetly in the background. 

Said the second in command to the colonel, 
unofficially : 

“These little things insure popularity, and 
do not the least affect discipline.’’ 

“But I went back on my word,’’ said the 
colonel. 

“Never mind,’’ said the second in command. 
“The White Hussars will follow you any- 
where from to-day. Regiments are just like 
women. They will do anything for trink- 
etry. ’ ’ 

A week later, Hogan- Yale received an 
extraordinary letter from some one who signed 
himself “Secretary Charity and Zeal, 3709, E. 
C.,’’ and asked for “the return of our skeleton 
which we have reason to believe is in your 
possession. “ 

“Who the deuce is this lunatic who trades 
in bones?’’ said Hogan-Yale. 

“Beg your pardon, sir,’* said the band ser- 
geant, “but the skeleton is with me, and I’ll 
return it if you’ll pay the carriage into the 
civil lines. There’s a coffin with it, sir.’’ 

Hogan-Yale smiled and handed two rupees 


254 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


to the band-sergeant, saying: “Write the date 
on the skull, will you?” 

If you doubt this story, and know where to 
go, you can see the date on the skeleton. But 
don’t mention the matter to the W'hite Hus- 
sars. 

I happen to know something about it because 
I prepared the drum-horse for his resurrection. 
He did not take kindly to the skeleton at all. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 255 


THE BRONCKHORwST DIVORCE CASE. 

In the daytime, when she moved about me. 

In the night, when she was sleeping at my side — 

I was wearied, I was wearied of her presence. 

Day by day and night by night I grew to hate her — 
Would God that she or I had died! 

— Confessions. 

There was a man called Bronckhorst — a 
three-cornered, middle-aged man in the army 
— gray as a badger, and some people said, with 
a touch of country-blood in him. That, how- 
ever, cannot be proved. Mrs. Bronckhorst 
was not exactly young, though fifteen years 
younger than her husband. She was a large, 
pale, quiet woman, with heavy eyelids over 
weak eyes, and hair that turned red or yellow 
as the lights fell on it. 

Bronckhorst was not nice in any way. He 
had no respect for the pretty public and pri- 
vate lies that make life a little less nasty than 
it is. His manner toward his wife was coarse. 
There are many things — including actual 
assault with the clinched fist — that a wife will 
endure ; but seldom a wife can bear — as Mrs. 
Bronckhorst bore — with a long course of 
brutal, hard chaff, making light of her weak- 
nesses, her headaches, her small fits of gay- 
ety, her dresses, her queer little attempts to 
make herself attractive to her husband when 


256 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


she knows that she is not what she has been, 
and — worst of all — the love that she spends on 
her children. That particular sort of heavy- 
handed jest was specially dear to Bronckhorst. 

I suppose that he had first slipped into it, 
meaning no harm, in the honeymoon, when 
folk find their ordinary stock of endearments 
run short, and so go to the other extreme to 
express their feelings. A similar impulse 
makes a man say: “Hutt, you old beast!’' 
when a favorite horse nuzzles his coat-front. 
Unluckily, when the reaction of marriage sets 
in, the form of speech remains, and, the ten- 
derness having died out, hurts the wife more 
than she cares to say. But Mrs. Bronckhorst 
was devoted to her “Teddy,” as she called 
him. Perhaps that was why he objected to 
her. Perhaps — this is only a theory to ac- 
count for his infamous behavior later on— he 
gave way to the queer, savage feeling that 
sometimes takes by the throat a husband 
twenty years married, when he sees, across the 
table, the same face of his wedded wife, and 
knows that, as he has sat facing it, so must he 
continue to sit until the day of its death or his 
own. Most men and all women know the 
spasm. It only lasts for three breaths as a 
rule, must be a “throw-back” to times when 
men and women were rather worse than they 
are now, and is too unpleasant to be discussed. 

Dinner at the Bronckhorst’s was an infliction 
few men cared to undergo. Bronckhorst took 
a pleasure in saying things that made his wife 
wince. When their little boy came in at 


• PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


257 


dessert, Bronckhorst used to give him half a 
glass of wine, and naturally enough, the poor 
little mite got first riotous, next miserable, and 
was removed screaming. Bronckhorst asked 
if that was the way Teddy usually behaved, 
and whether Mrs. Bronckhorst could not spare 
some of her time to teach the “little beggar 
decency.” Mrs. Bronckhorst, who loved the 
boy more than her own life, tried not to cry — 
her spirit seemed to have been broken by her 
marriage. Lastly, Bronckhorst used to say: 
“There! That’ll do, that’ll do. For God’s 
sake try to behave like a rational woman. Go 
into the drawing-room.” Mrs. Bronckhorst 
would go, trying to carry it all off with a smile ; 
and the guest of the evening would feel angry 
and uncomfortable. 

After three years of this cheerful life — for 
Mrs. Bronckhorst had no woman-friends to 
talk to — the Station was startled by the news 
that Bronckhorst had instituted proceedings on 
the criminal count, against a man called Biel, 
who certainly had been rather attentive to 
Mrs. Bronckhorst whenever she had appeared 
in public. The utter want of reserve with 
which Bronckhorst treated his own dishonor 
helped us to know that the evidence against 
Biel would be entirely circumstantial and 
native. There were no letters; but Bronck- 
horst said openly that he would rack heaven 
and earth until he saw Biel superintending the 
manufacture of carpets in the central jail. 
Mrs. Bronckhorst kept entirely to her house, 
and let charitable folks say what they pleased. 

17 Plain Tales 


258 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Opinions were divided. Some two-thirds of 
the Station jumped at once to the conclusion 
that Biel was guilty; but a dozen men who 
knew and liked him held by him. Biel was 
furious and surprised. He denied the whole 
thing, and vowed that he would thrash Bronck- 
horst within an inch of his life. No jury, we 
knew, could convict a man on the criminal 
count on native evidence in a land where you 
can buy a murder-charge, including the 
corpse, all complete for fifty-four rupees; but 
Biel did not care to scrape through by the 
benefit of a doubt. He wanted the whole 
thing cleared; but as he said one night: “He 
can prove anything with servants’ evidence, 
and I’ve only my bare word.’’ This was 
about a month before the case came on ; and 
beyond agreeing with Biel, we could do little. 
All that we could be sure of was that^ the 
native evidence would be bad enough to blast 
Biel’s character for the rest of his service; for 
when a native begins perjury he perjures him- 
self thoroughly. He does not boggle over 
details. 

Some genius at the end of the table whereat 
the affair was being talked over said: “Look 
here! I don’t believe lawyers are any good. 
Get a man to wire to Strickland, and beg him 
to come down and pull us through. ’’ 

Strickland was about a hundred and eighty 
miles up the line. He had not long been mar- 
ried to Miss Youghal, but he scented in the 
telegram a chance of return to the old detective 
work that his soul lusted after, and next night 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


259 


he came in and heard our story. He finished 
his pipe and said oracularly: “We must get 
at the evidence. Oorya bearer, Mussalman 
khit and methraniayah^ I suppose are the pillars 
of the charge. I am on in this piece; but I’m 
afraid I’m getting rusty in my talk.’’ 

He rose and went into Biel’s bedroom where 
his trunk had been put, and shut the door. An 
hour later, we heard him say: “I hadn’t the 
heart to part with my old make-ups when I 
married. Will this do?’’ There was a lothely 
faquir salaaming in the doorway. 

“Now lend me fifty rupees,’’ said Strickland, 
“and give me your words of honor that you 
won’t tell my wife.’’ 

He got all that he asked for, and left the 
house while the table drank his health. What 
he did only he himself knows. A faquir hung 
about Bronckhorst’s compound for twelve 
days. Then a mehter appeared, and when Biel 
heard of him, he said that Strickland was an 
angel full-fledged. Whether the mehter made 
love to Janki, Mrs. Bronckhorst’s ayah, is a 
question which concerns Strickland exclusive- 

ly- 

He came back at the end of three weeks, and 
said quietly: “You spoke the truth Biel. 
The whole business is put up from beginning 
to end! Jove! It almost astonishes me! 
That Bronckhorst beast isn’t fit to live.’’ 

There was uproar and shouting, and Biel 
said: “How are you going to prove it? You 
can’t say that you’ve been trespassing on 
Bronckhorst’s compound in disguise!’’ 


260 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


“No,” said Strickland. “Tell your lawyer- 
fool, whoever he is, to get up something 
strong about ‘inherent improbabilities’ and 
‘discrepancies of evidence. ’ He won’t have to 
speak, but it will make him happy. I’m going 
to run this business.” 

Biel held his tongue, and the other men 
waited to see what would happen. They 
trusted Strickland as men trust quiet men. 
When the case came off the court was crowded. 
Strickland hung about in the veranda of the 
court, till he met the Mohammedan khitmatgar. 
Then he murmured a faquir s blessing in his 
ear, and asked him how his second wife did. 
The man spun round, and, as he looked into 
the eyes of “ Estreeken sahib, ’ ’ his jaw dropped. 
You must remember that before Strickland 
was married he was, as I have told you al- 
ready, a power among the natives. Strick- 
land whispered a rather coarse vernacular pro- 
verb to the effect that he was abreast of all 
that was going on, and went into the court 
armed with a gut trainer’s whip. 

The Mohammedan was the first witness, 
and Strickland beamed upon him from the 
back of the court. The man moistened his 
lips with his tongue, and, in his abject fear of 
“ Estreeken ” the faquir, went back on 
every detail of his evidence — said he was a 
poor man and God was his witness that he had 
forgotten everything that Bronckhorst sahib 
had told him to say. Between his terror of 
Strickland, the judge, and Bronckhorst, he 
collapsed, weeping. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 261 


- Then began the panic among the witnesses. 
Janki, the ayah^ leering chastely behind her 
veil, turned gray, and the bearer left the court. 
He said that his mamma was dying and that it 
was not wholesome for any man to lie un- 
thriftily in the presence of “Estreeken sahib.'' 

Biel said politely to Bronckhorst: “Your 
witnesses don’t seem to work. Haven’t you 
any forged letters to produce?” But Bronck- 
horst was swaying to and fro in his chair, and 
there was a dead pause after Biel had been 
called to order. 

Bronckhorst’s counsel saw the look on his 
client’s face, and without more ado, pitched 
his papers on the little green baize table, and 
mumbled something about having been mis- 
informed. The whole court applauded wildly, 
like soldiers at a theater, and the judge began 
to say what he thought. 

% * * * * 

Biel came out of the place, and Strickland 
dropped a gut trainer’s whip in the veranda. 
Ten minutes later, Biel was cutting Bronck- 
horst into ribbons behind the old court cells, 
quietly and without scandal. What was left 
of Bronckhorst was sent home in a carriage ; 
and his wife wept over it and nursed it into a 
man again. 

Later on, after Biel had managed to hush 
up the counter-charge against Bronckhorst of 
fabricating false evidence, Mrs. Bronckhorst, 
with her faint, watery smile, said that ther-^ 
had been a mistake, but it wasn’t her Teddy’s 


262 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


fault altogether. She would wait till her 
Teddy came back to her. Perhaps he had 
grown tired of her, or she had tried his 
patience, and perhaps we wouldn’t cut her any 
more, and perhaps the mothers would let their 
children play with “little Teddy” again. He 
was so lonely. Then the Station invited Mrs. 
Bronckhorst everywhere, until Bronckhorst 
was fit to appear in public, when he went home 
and took his wife with him. According to the 
latest advices, her Teddy did “come back to 
her,” and they are moderately happy. 
Though, of course, he can never forgive her 
the thrashing that she was the indirect means 
of getting for him. 

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 
yjs 

What Biel wants to know is: “Why didn’t 
I press home the charge against the Bronck- 
horst brute, and have him run in?” 

What Mrs. Strickland wants to know is: 
“How did my husband bring such a lovely, 
lovely Waler from your Station? I know all 
his money-affairs, and I’m certain he didn’t 
buy it. ” 

What I want to know is: “How do women 
like Mrs. Bronckhorst come to marry men like 
Bronckhorst?” 

And my conundrum is the most unanswera- 
ble of the three. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 263 


VENUS ANNODOMINI. 

And the years went on as the years must do ; 

But our great Diana was always new — 

Fresh, and blooming, and blonde, and fair. 

With azure eyes and with aureate hair; 

And all the folk, as they came or went. 

Offered her praise to her heart’s content. 

— Diana of Ephesus. 

She had nothing to do with Number Eight- 
een in the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican, be- 
tween Visconti’s Ceres and the God of the 
Nile. She was purely an Indian deity — an 
Anglo-Indian deity, that is to say — and we 
called her the Venus Annodomini, to distin- 
guish her from other Annodominis of the same 
everlasting order. There was a legend among 
the Hills that she had once been young; but 
no living man was prepared to come forward 
and say boldly that the legend was true. Men 
rode up to Simla, and stayed, and went away 
and made their name and did their life’s work, 
and returned again to find the Venus Anno- 
domini exactly as they had left her. She was 
as immutable as the Hills. But not quite so 
green. All that a girl of eighteen could do in 
the way of riding, walking, dancing, picnick- 
ing and over-exertion generally, the Venus 
Annodomini did, and showed no sign of fatigue 
or trace of weariness. Besides perpetual 


264 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


youth, she had discovered, men said, the secret 
of perpetual health; and her fame spread 
about the land. From a mere woman she 
grew to be an institution, insomuch that no 
young man could be said to be properly 
formed who had not, at some time or another, 
worshiped at the shrine of the Venus Anno- 
domini. There was no one like her, though 
there were many imitations. Six years in her 
eyes were no more than six months to ordinary 
women; and ten made less visible impression 
on her than does a week’s fever on an ordinary 
woman. Every one adored her, and in return 
she was pleasant and courteous to nearly every 
one. Youth had been a habit of hers for so 
long that she could not part with it — never 
realized, in fact, the necessity of parting with 
it — and took for her more chosen associates 
young people. 

Among the worshipers of the Venus Anno- 
domini was young Gayerson. “Very Young’^ 
Gayerson, he was called to distinguish him 
from his father “Young” Gayerson, a Bengal 
civilian, who affected the customs — as he had 
the heart — of youth. “Very Young” Gayer- 
son was not content to worship placidly and 
for form’s sake, as the other young men did, or 
to accept a ride or a dance, or a talk from the 
Venus Annodomini in a properly humble and 
thankful spirit. He was exacting, and there- 
fore, the Venus Annodomini repressed him. 
He worried himself nearly sick in a futile sort 
of way over her; and his devotion and earnest- 
ness made him appear either shy or boisterous 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


265 


Ov I'ude, as his mood might vary, by the side 
of the older men who, with him, bowed before 
the Venus Annodomini. She was sorry for 
him. He reminded her of a lad who, twenty- 
three years ago, had professed a boundless 
devotion for her, and for whom in return she 
had felt something more than a week's weak- 
ness. Bat that lad had fallen away and mar- 
ried another woman less than a year after he 
had worshiped her; and the Venus Annodom- 
ini had almost — not quite — forgotten his name. 
“Very Young” Gayerson had the same big 
blue eyes and the same way of pouting his 
underlip when he was excited or troubled. 
But the Venus Annodomini checked him 
sternly none the less. Too much zeal was a 
thing that she did not approve of ; preferring 
instead, a tempered and sober tenderness. 

“Very young” Gayerson was miserable, and 
took no trouble to conceal his wretchedness. 
He was in the army — a line regiment I think, 
but I am not certain — and, since his face was 
a looking-glass and his forehead an open book, 
by reason of his innocence, his brothers-in- 
arms made his life a burden to him and embit- 
tered his naturally sweet disposition. No one 
except “ Very Young” Gayerson, and he never 
told his views, knew how old “Very Young” 
Gayerson believed the Venus Annodomini to 
be. Perhaps he thought her five-and-twenty, 
or perhaps she told him that she was this age. 
“Very Young” Gayerson would have forded 
the Gugger in flood to carry her lightest word, 
and had implicit faith in her. Every one liked 


266 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


him, and every one was sorry when they saw 
him so bound a slave of the Venus Annodom- 
ini. Every one, too, admitted that it was not 
her fault; for the Venus Annodomini differed 
from Mrs. Hauksbee and Mrs. Reiver in this 
particular — she never moved a finger to attract 
any one; but, like Ninon de I’Enclos, all men 
were attracted to her. One could admire and 
respect Mrs. Hauksbee, despise and avoid 
Mrs. Reiver, but one was forced to adore the 
Venus Annodomini. 

“Very Young” Gayerson’s papa held a 
division or a collectorate or something admin- 
istrative in a particularly unpleasant part of 
Bengal — full of Babus who edited newspapers 
proving that “Young” Gayerson was a “Nero” 
and a “Scylla” and a “Charybdis;” and, in 
addition to the Babus, there was a good deal of 
dysentery and cholera abroad for nine months 
of the year. “Young” Ga^^erson — he was 
about five-and-forty — rather liked Babus, they 
amused him, but he objected to dysentery, and 
when he could get away, went to Darjilling for 
the most part. This particular season he 
fancied that he would come up to Simla, and 
see his boy. The boy was not altogether 
pleased. He told the Venus Annodomini that 
his father was coming up, and she flushed a 
little and said that she should be delighted to 
make his acquaintance. Then she looked long 
and thoughtfully at “Very Young” Gayerson; 
because she was very, very sorry for him, and 
he was a very, very big idiot. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 267 


“My daughter is coming out in a fortnight, 
Mr. Gayerson,” she said. 

“Your what?” said he. 

“Daughter,” said the Venus Annodomini. 
“She’s been out for a year at home already, 
and I want her to see a little of India. She 
is nineteen and a very sensible, nice girl I 
believe. ” 

“Very Young” Gayerson, who was a short 
twenty* two years old, nearly fell out of his 
chair with astonishment; for he had persisted 
in believing, against all belief, in the youth of 
the Venus Annodomini. She, with her back 
to the curtained window, watched the effect of 
her sentences and smiled. 

“Very Young” Gayerson ’s papa came up 
twelve days later, and had not been in Simla 
four-and-twenty hours, before two men, old 
acquaintances of his, had told him how “Very 
Young” Gayerson had been conducting him- 
self. 

“Young” Gayerson laughed a good deal and 
inquired who the Venus Annodomini might 
be, which proves that he had been living in 
Bengal where nobody knows anything except 
the rate of exchange.' Then he said “boys 
will be boys,” and spoke to his son about the 
matter. “Very Young” Gayerson said that 
he felt wretched and unhappy and “Young” 
Gayerson said that he repented of having 
helped to bring a fool into the world. He sug- 
gested that his son had better cut his leave 
short and go down to his duties. This led to 
an unfilial answer and relations were strained. 


268 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


until “Young” Gayerson demanded that they 
should call on the Venus Annodomini. “Very 
Young” Gayerson went with his papa, feeling, 
somehow, uncomfortable and small. 

The Venus Annodomini received them 
graciously and “Young” Gayerson said: “By 
Jove! It’s Kitty!” “Very Young” Gayerson 
would have listened for an explanation, if his 
time had not been taken up with trying to 
talk to a large, handsome, quiet, well-dressed 
girl — introduced to him by the Venus Anno- 
domini as her daughter. She was far older in 
manners, style and repose than “Very Young” 
Gayerson and, as he realized this thing, he 
felt sick. 

Presently, he heard the Venus Annodomini 
saying: “Do you know that your son is one of 
my most devoted admirers?” 

“I don’t wonder,” said “Young” Gayerson. 
Here he raised his voice: “He follows his 
father’s footsteps. Didn’t I worship the 
ground you trod on, ever so long ago, Kitty — 
and you haven’t changed since then. How 
strange it all seems!” 

“Very Young” Gayerson said nothing. His 
conversation with the daughter of the Venus 
Annodomini was, through the rest of the call, 
fragmentary and disjointed. 

“At five to-morrow then,” said the Venus 
Annodomini. “And mind that you are punc- 
tual.” 

“At five punctually,” said “Young” Gayer- 
son. “You can lend your old father a horse I 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


269 


dare say, youngster, can’t you? I’m going 
for a ride to-morrow afternoon.” 

“Certainly,” said “Very Young” Gayerson. 
“I am going down to-morrow morning. My 
ponies are at your service, sir. ’ ’ 

The Venus Annodomini looked at him across 
the half-light of the room, and her big gray 
eyes filled with moisture. She rose and shook 
hands with him. “Good-by, Tom,” whis- 
pered the Venus Annodomini. 


270 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


THE BISARA OF POOREE. 

Little Blind Fish, thou art marvelous wise, 

Little Blind Fish, who put out thy eyes? 

Open thine ears while I whisper my wish — 

Bring me a lover, thou little Blind Fish. 

— The Charm of the Bisara. 

Some natives say that it came from the other 
side of Kulu, where the eleven-inch Temple 
Sapphire is. Others that it was made at the 
devil-shrine of Ao-Chung in Thibet, was stolen 
by a Kafir, from him by a Gurkha, from him 
again by a Lahouli, from him by a khitmatgar^ 
and by this latter sold to an Englishman, so 
all its virtue was lost : because, to work prop- 
erly, the Bisara of Pooree must be stolen — 
with bloodshed if possible, but, at any rate, 
stolen. 

These stories of the coming into India are 
all false. It was made at Pooree ages since — 
the manner of its making would fill a small 
book — was stolen by one of the temple danc- 
ing-girls there, for her own purposes, and then 
passed on from hand to hand, steadily north- 
ward, till it reached Hanla: always bearing 
the same name — the Bisara of Pooree. In 
shape it is a tiny, square box of silver, studded 
outside with eight small balas-rubies. Inside 
the box, which opens with a spring, is a little 
eyeless fish, carved from some sort of dark. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 271 

shiny nut and wrapped in a shred of faded 
gold-cloth. That is the Bisera of Pooree, and 
it were better for a man to take a king cobra 
in his hand than to touch the Bisera of Pooree. 

All kinds of magic are out of date, and done 
away with except in India where nothing 
changes in spite of the shiny, toy-scum stuff 
that people call “civilization.” Any man who 
knows about the Bisara of Pooree will tell you 
what its powers are — always supposing that it 
has been honestly stolen. It is the only regu- 
larly-working, trustworthy love-charm in the 
country, with one exception. 

(The other charm is in the hands of a trooper 
of the Nizam’s Horse, at a place called Tu- 
prani, due north of Hyderabad.) This can be 
depended upon for a fact. Some one else may 
explain it. 

If the Bisara be not stolen, but given or 
bought or found, it turns against its owner in 
three years, and leads to ruin or death. This 
is another fact which you may explain when 
you have time. Meanwhile, you can laugh at 
it. At present, the Bisara is safe on the ekka 
pony’s neck inside the blue-bead necklace that 
keeps off the evil-eye. If the ekka driver ever 
finds it, and wears it, or gives it to his wife, I 
am sorry for him. 

A very dirty Hill-coolie woman, with goitre, 
owned it at Theog in 1884. It came into 
Simla from the north before Churton’s khit- 
matgar honght it, and sold it, for three times 
its silver value, to Churton, who collected curi- 
osities. The servant knew no more what he 


272 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


had bought than the master; but a man look- 
ing over Churton’s collection of curiosities — 
Churton was an assistant commissioner by the 
way — saw and held his tongue. He was an 
Englishman ; but knew how to believe. Which 
shows that he was different from most Eng- 
lishmen. He knew that it was dangerous to 
have any share in the little box when working 
or dormant; for unsought love is a terrible 
gift. 

Pack — “Grubby” Pack, as we used to call 
him — was in every way, a nasty little man who 
must have crawled into the army by mistake. 
He was three inches taller than his sword, but 
not half so strong. And the sword was a fifty- 
shilling, tailor-made one. Nobody liked him, 
and, I suppose, it was his wizenedness and 
worthlessness that made him fall so hopelessly 
in love with Miss Hollis, who was good and 
sweet, and five feet seven in her tennis shoes. 
He was not content with falling in love quietly, 
but brought all the strength of his miserable 
little nature into the business. If he had not 
been so objectionable, one might have pitied 
him. He vapored, and fretted, and fumed, 
and trotted up and down, and tried to make 
himself pleasing in Miss Flollis’ big, quiet, gray 
eyes, and failed. It was one of the cases that 
you sometimes meet, even in this country 
where we marry by code, of a really blind 
attachment all on one side, without the faintest 
possibility of return. Miss Hollis looked on 
Pack as some sort of vermin running about 
the road. He had no prospects beyond cap- 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


273 


tain’s pay, and no wits to help that out by one 
anna. In a large-sized man, love like his 
would have been touching. In a good man it 
would have been grand. He being what he 
was, it was only a nuisance. 

You will believe this much. What you will 
not believe is what follows: Churton, and the 
man who knew what the Bisara was, were 
lunching at the Simla club together. Churton 
was complaining of life in general. His best 
mare had rolled out of stable down the hill 
and had broken her back; his decisions were 
being reversed by the upper courts, more than 
an assistant commissioner of eight years’ stand- 
ing has a right to expect ; he knew liver and 
fever, and, for weeks past, had felt out of sorts. 
Altogether, he was disgusted and disheart- 
ened. 

Simla Club dining-room is built, as all the 
world knows, in two sections, with an arch- 
arrangement dividing them. Come in, turn to 
your own left, take the table under the win- 
dow, and you cannot see any one who has come 
in, turned to the right, and taken a table on 
the right side of the arch. Curiously enough, 
every word that you say can be heard, not only 
by the other diner, but by the servants beyond 
the screen through which they bring dinner. 
This is worth knowing: an echoing-room is a 
trap to be forewarned against. 

Half in fun, and half hoping to be believed, 
the man who knew told Churton the story of 
the Bisara of Pooree at rather greater length 
than I have told it to you in this place; wind- 

18 Plain Tales 


274 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


ing up with a suggestion that Churton might 
as well throw the little box down the hill and 
see whether all his troubles would go with it. 
In ordinary ears, English ears, the tale was 
only an interesting bit of folk-lore. Churton 
laughed, said that he felt better for his tiffin, 
and went out. Pack had been tiffining by 
himself to the right of the arch, and had heard 
everything. He was nearly mad with his 
absurd infatuation for Miss Hollis that all 
Simla had been laughing about. 

It was a curious thing that, when a man 
hates or loves beyond reason, he is ready to go 
beyond reason to gratify his feelings, which 
he would not do for money or power merely. 
Depend upon it, Solomon would never have 
built altars to Ashtaroth and all those ladies 
with queer names if there had not been trouble 
of some kind in his zenana, and nowhere else. 
But this is beside the story. The facts of the 
case are these: Pack called on Churton next 
day when Churton was out, left his card, and 
stole the Bisara of Pooree from its place under 
the clock on the mantelpiece! Stole it like the 
thief he was by nature. Three days later, all 
Simla was electrified by the news that Miss 
Hollis had accepted Pack — the shriveled rat. 
Pack. Do you desire clearer evidence than 
this? The Bisara of Pooree had been stolen, 
and it worked as it had always done when won 
by foul means. 

There are three or four times in a man’s life 
when he is justified in meddling with other 
people’s affairs to play providence. The 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 275 


man who knew felt that he was justi- 
fied; but believing and acting on a belief are 
quite different things. The insolent satisfac- 
tion of Pack as he ambled by the side of Miss 
Hollis, and Churton’s striking release from 
liver, as soon as the Bisara of Pooree had gone, 
decided the man. He explained to Churton, 
and Churton laughed, because he was not 
brought up to believe that men on the Govern- 
ment House list steal — at least little things. 
But the miraculous acceptance by Miss Hollis 
of that tailor. Pack, decided him to take steps 
on suspicion. He vowed that he only wanted 
to find out where his ruby-studded silver box 
had vanished to. You cannot accuse a man on 
the Government House list of stealing. And 
if you rifle his room you are a thief yourself. 
Churton, prompted by the man who knew, 
decided on burglary. If he found nothing in 
Pack’s room . . . but it is not nice to think of 
what would have happened in that case. 

Pack went to a dance at Benmore — Benmore 
was Benmore in those days, and not an office — 
and danced fifteen waltzes out of twenty-two 
with Miss Hollis. Churton and the man took 
all the boys that they could lay hands on, and 
went to Pack’s room in the hotel, certain that 
his servants would be away. Pack was a 
cheap soul. He had not purchased a decent 
cash-box to keep his papers in, but one of those 
native imitations that you buy for ten rupees. 
It opened to any sort of key, and there at the 
bottom, under Pack’s insurance policy, lay the 
Bisara of Pooree ! 


276 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

Churton called Pack names, put the Bisara 
of Pooree in his pocket, and went to the dance 
with the man. At least, he came in time for 
supper, .and saw the beginning of the end in 
Miss Hollis’ eyes. She v/as hysterical after 
supper, and was taken away by her mamma. 

At the dance, with the abominable Bisara in 
his pocket, Churton twisted his foot on one of 
the steps leading down to the old rink, and had 
to be sent home in a ’rickshaw, grumbling. 
He did not believe in the Bisara of Pooree any 
the more for this manifestation, but he sought 
out Pack and called him some ugly names; 
and “thief” was the mildest of them. Pack 
took the names with the nervous smile of a lit- 
tle man who wants both soul and body to resent 
an insult, and went his way. There was no 
public scandal. 

A week later. Pack got his definite dismissal 
from Miss Hollis. There had been a mistake 
in the placing of her affections, she said. So 
he went away to Madras, where he can do no 
great harm even if he lives to be a colonel. 

Churton insisted upon the man who knew 
taking the Bisara of Pooree at a gift. The 
man took it, went down to the Cart Road at 
once, found an ekka-^owy with a blue-bead 
necklace, fasten the Bisara of Pooree inside the 
necklace with a piece of shoestring and thank 
heaven that he was rid of a danger. Remem- 
ber, in case you ever find it, that you must not 
destroy the Bisara of Pooree. I have not time 
to explain why just now, but the power lies in 
the little wooden fish. Mister Gubernatis or 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 277 


Max Muller could tell you more about it 
than I. 

You will say that all this story is made up. 
Very well. If ever you come across a little 
silver, ruby-studded box, seven-eighths of an 
inch long by three-quarters wide, with a dark- 
brown wooden fish, wrapped in gold cloth, in- 
side it, keep it. Keep it for three years, and 
then you will discover for yourself whether 
my story is true or false. 

Better still, steal it as Pack did, and you will 
be sorry that you had not killed yourself in the 
beginning. 


278 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


THE GATE OF A HUNDRED SORROWS. 

.'Tf I can attain Heaven for a pice, why should you 
be envious?” — Opium Smoker’s Proverb. 

This is no work of mine. My friend, Gabral 
Misquitta, the half-caste, spoke it all, between 
moonset and morning, six weeks before he 
died; and I took it down from his mouth as he 
answered my questions so : 

It lies between the coppersmith’s gully and 
the pipestem sellers’ quarter, within a hundred 
yards, too, as the crow flies, of the Mosque of 
Wazir Khan, I don’t mind telling any one 
this much, but I defy him to find the gate, how- 
ever well he may think he knows the city. 
You might even go through the very gully it 
stands in a hundred times, and be none the 
wiser. We used to call the gully, “the Gully 
of the Black Smoke,’’ but its native name is 
altogether different of course. A loaded don- 
key couldn’t pass between the walls; and, at 
one point, just before you reach the gate, a 
bulged house-front makes people go along all 
sideways. 

It isn’t really a gate though. It’s a house. 
Old Fung-Tching had it first five years ago. 
He was a boot-maker in Calcutta. They say 
that he murdered his wife there when he was 
drunk. That was why he dropped bazarrum 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 279 


and took to the Black Smoke instead. Later 
on, he came up north and opened the gate as 
a house where you could get your smoke in 
peace and quiet. Mind you, it was a pukka, 
respectable opium-house, and not one of those 
stifling, sweltering chandoo-khanas, that you 
can find all over the city. No; the old man 
knew his business thoroughly, and he was 
most clean for a Chinaman. He was a one- 
eyed little chap, not much more than five feet 
high, and both his middle fingers were gone. 
All the same, he was the handiest man at 
rolling black pills I have ever seen. Never 
seemed to be touched by the smoke either; and 
what he took day and night, night and day, 
was a caution. I’ve been at it five years, and 
I can do my fair share of the smoke with any 
one ; but I was a child to Fung-Tching that way. 
All the same, the old man was keen on his 
money, very keen; and that’s what I can’t un- 
derstand. I heard he saved a good deal before 
he died, but his nephew has got all that now; 
and the old man’s gone back to China to be 
buried. 

He kept the big upper room, where his best 
customers gathered, as neat as a new pin. In 
one corner used to stand Fung-Tching’s Joss 
— almost as ugly as Fung-Tching — and there 
were always sticks burning under his nose; 
but you never smelt ’em when the pipes were 
going thick. Opposite the Joss was Fung- 
Tching’s coffin. He had spent a good deal of 
his savings on that, and whenever a new man 
came to the gate he was always introduced to 


280 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

it. It was lacquered black, with red and gold 
writings on it, and I’ve heard that Fung-Tching 
brought it out all the way from China. I 
don’t know whether that’s true or not, but I 
know that, if I came first in the evening, I 
used to spread my mat just at the foot of it. It 
was a quiet corner, you see, and a sort of 
breeze from the gully came in at the window 
now and then. Beside the mats, there was no 
other furniture in the room — only the coffin, 
and the old Joss all green and blue and purple 
with age and polish. 

Fung-Tching never told us why he called 
the place “The Gate of a Hundred Sorrows,” 
(He was the only Chinaman I know who used 
bad-sounding fancy names. Most of them are 
flowery. As you’ll see in Calcutta.) We used 
to find that out for ourselves. Nothing grows 
on you so much, if you’re white, as the black 
smoke. A yellow man is made different. 
Opium doesn’t tell on him scarcely at all; but 
white and black suffer a good deal. Of course, 
there are some people that the smoke doesn’t 
touch any more than tobacco would at first. 
They just doze a bit, as one would fall asleep 
naturally, and next morning they are almost 
fit for work. Now, I was one of that sort when 
I began, but I’ve been at it for five 3’’ears 
pretty steadily, and its different now. There 
was an old aunt of mine, down Agar way, and 
she left me a little at her death. About sixty 
rupees a month secured. Sixty isn’t much. 
I can recollect a time, seems hundreds and 
hundreds of years ago, that I was getting 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 281 


my three hundred a month, and pickings, 
when I was working on a big timber contract 
in Calcutta. 

I didn't stick to that work for long. The 
black smoke does not allow of much other bus- 
iness; and even though I am very little 
affected by it, as men go, I couldn’t do a day’s 
work now to save my life. After all, sixty 
rupees is what I want. When old Fung-Tching 
was alive he used to draw the money for me, 
give me about half of it to live on (I eat very 
little), and the rest he kept himself. I was 
free of the gate at any time of the day and 
night, and could smoke and sleep there when 
I liked, so I didn’t care. I know the old man 
made a good thing out of it ; but that’s no mat- 
ter. Nothing matters much to me; and, be- 
sides, the money always came fresh and fresh 
each month. 

There was ten of us met at the gate when 
the place was first opened. Me, and two 
Baboos from a government office somewhere in 
Anarkulli, but they got the sack and couldn’t 
pay (no man who has to work in the daylight 
can do the black smoke for any length of time 
straight on) ; a Chinaman that was Fung- 
Tching’s nephew ; a bazar- woman that had got 
a lot of money somehow; an English loafer — 
Mac-Somebody, I think, but I have forgotten — 
that smoked heaps, but never seemed to pay 
anything (they said he had saved Fung- 
Tching’s life at some trial in Calcutta when 
he was a barrister) : another Eurasian, like 
myself, from Madras; a half-caste woman, and 


282 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


a couple of men who said they had come from 
the North. I think they must have been Per- 
sians or Afghans or something. There are not 
more than five us us living now, but we come 
regular. I don’t know what happened to the 
Baboos ; but the bazar- woman she died after six 
months of the gate, and I think Fung-Tching 
took her bangles and nose-ring for himself. 
But I’m not certain. The Englishman, he 
drank as well as smoked, and he dropped off. 
One of the Persians got killed in a row at night 
by the big well near the mosque a long time 
ago, and the police shut up the well, because 
they said it was full of foul air. They found 
him dead at the bottom of it. So you see, 
there is only me, the Chinaman, the half-caste 
woman that we call the Memsahib (she used to 
live with Fung-Tching), the other Eurasian, 
and one of the Persians. The Memsahib looks 
very old now. I think she was a young 
woman when the gate was opened; but we are 
all old for the matter of that. Hundreds and 
hundreds of years old. It is very hard to keep 
count of time in the gate, and besides, time 
doesn’t matter to me. I draw my sixty rupees 
fresh and fresh every month. A very, very 
long while ago, when I used to be getting three 
hundred and fifty rupees a month, and pick- 
ings, on a big timber contract at Calcutta, I 
had a wife of sorts. But she’s dead now. 
People said that I killed her by taking to the 
black smoke. Perhaps I did, but it’s so long 
since it doesn’t matter. Sometimes when I 
first came to the gate, I used to feel sorry for 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 283 


it; but that’s all over and done with long ago, 
and I draw my sixty rupees fresh and fresh 
every month, and am quite happy. Not drunk 
happy, you know, but always quiet and 
soothed and contented. 

How did I take to it? It began at Calcutta. 
I used to try it in my own house, just to see 
what it was like. I never went very far, but 
I think my wife must have died then. Any- 
how, I found myself here, and got to know 
Fung-Tching. I don’t remember rightly how 
that came about ; but he told me of the gate 
and I used to go there, and somehow, I have 
never got away from it since. Mind you, 
though, the gate was a respectable place in 
Fung-Tching’s time where you could be com- 
fortable, and not at all like the chandoo-khanas 
where the niggers go. No; it was clean and 
quiet, and not crowded. Of course, there were 
others besides us ten and the man; but we 
always had a mat apiece with a wadded woolen 
head piece, all covered with black and red 
dragons and things; just like a coffin in the 
corner. 

At the end of one’s third pipe the dragons 
used to move about and fight. I’ve watched 
’em, many and many a night through. I used 
to regulate my smoke that way, and now it 
takes a dozen pipes to make ’em stir. Besides, 
they are all torn and dirty, like the mats, and 
old Fung-Tching is dead. He died a couple of 
years ago, and gave me the pipe I always use 
now — a silver one with queer beasts crawling 
up and down the receiver-bottle below the cup. 


284 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Before that, I think, I used a big bamboo stem 
with a copper cup, a very small one, and a 
green jade mouthpiece. It was a little thicker 
than a walking-stick stem, and smoked sweet, 
very sweet. The bamboo seemed to suck up 
the smoke. Silver doesn’t, and I’ve got to 
clean it out now and then: that’s a great deal 
of trouble, but I smoke it for the old man’s 
sake. He must have made a good thing out 
of me, but he always gave me clean mats and 
pillows, and the best stuff you could get any- 
where. When he died, his nephew Tsin-ling 
took up the gate and he called it the “Temple 
of the Three Possessions,’’ but we old ones 
speak of it as the “Hundred Sorrows,’’ all the 
same. The nephew does things very shabbily, 
and I think the Meinsahib must help him. She 
lives with him; same as she used to do. with 
the old man. The two let in all sorts of low 
people, niggers and all, and the black smoke 
isn’t as good as it used to be. “I’ve found 
burned bran in my pipe over and over again. 
The old man would have died if that had hap- 
pened in his time. Beside the room is never 
cleaned, and all the mats are torn and cut at 
the edges. The coffin has gone — gone to China 
again — with the Old man and two ounces of 
smoke inside it, in case he should want ’em on 
the way. 

The Joss doesn’t get so many sticks burned 
under his nose as he used to; that’s a sign of 
ill-luck and sure as death. He’s all brown, 
too, and no one ever attends to him. That’s the 
Meinsahib's work, I know ; because, when Tsin- 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 285 


ling tried to burn gilt paper before him, she 
said it was a waste of money, and, if he kept a 
stick burning very slowly, the Joss wouldn’t 
know the difference. So now we’ve got the 
sticks mixed with a lot of glue, and they take 
half an hour longer to burn, and smell stinky. 
Let alone the smell of the room by itself. No 
business can get on if they try that sort of 
thing. The Joss doesn’t like it. I can see 
that. Late at night, sometimes, he turns all 
sorts of queer colors — blue and green and red 
— just as he used to do when old Fung-Tching 
was alive; and he rolls his eyes and stamps his 
feet like a devil. 

I don’t know why I don’t leave the place and 
smoke quietly in a little room of my own in 
the bazar. Most like, Tsin-ling would kill me 
if I went away — he draws my sixty rupees 
now — and besides, it’s so much trouble, and 
I’ve grown to be very fond of the gate. It’s 
not much to look at. Not what it was in the 
old man’s time, but I couldn’t leave it. I’ve 
seen so many come in and out. And I’ve seen 
so many die here on the mats that I should be 
afraid of dying in the open now. I’ve seen 
some things that people would call strange 
enough; but nothing is strange when you’re 
on the black smoke, except the black smoke. 
And if it was, it wouldn’t matter. Fung- 
Tching used to be very particular about his 
people, and never got in any one who’d give 
trouble by dying messy and such. But the 
nephew isn’t half so careful. He tells every- 
where that he keeps a “first-chop” house. 


286 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Never tries to get men in quietly, and make 
them comfortable like Fung-Tching did. 
That’s why the gate is getting a little bit more 
known than it used to be. Among the nig- 
gers of course. The nephew daren’t get a 
white, or, for matter of that, a mixed skin into 
the place. He has to keep us three, of course 
—me and the Memsahib and the other Eurasian. 
We’re fixtures. But he wouldn’t give us 
credit for a pipeful — not for anything. 

One of these days, I hope, I shall die in the 
gate. The Persian and the Madras man are 
terrible shaky now. They’ve got a boy to 
light their pipes for them. I always do that 
myself. Most like, I shall see them carried 
out before me. - I don’t think I shall ever out- 
live the Memsahib or Tsin-ling. Women last 
longer than men at the black smoke, and 
Tsin-ling has a deal of the old man’s blood in 
him, though he does smoke cheap stuff. The 
bazar-woman knew when she was going two 
days before her time; and she died on a clean 
mat with a nicely wadded pillow, and the old 
man hung up her pipe just above the Joss. 
He was always fond of her, I fancy. But he 
took her bangles just the same. 

I should like to die like the bazar-woman — 
on a clean, cool mat with a pipe of good stuff 
between my lips. When I feel I’m going, I 
shall ask Tsin-ling for them, and he can draw 
my sixty rupees a month, fresh and fresh, 
as long as he pleases. Then I shall lie back, 
quiet and comfortable, and watch the black 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 287 


and red dragons have their last big fight 

together ; and then 

Well, it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters 
much to me — only I wish Tsin-ling wouldn’t 
put bran into the black smoke. 


288 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


THE MADNESS OF PRIVATE OR- 
THERIS. 

Oh ! Where would I be when my froat was dry? 

Oh ! Where would I be when the bullets fly? 

Oh! Where would I be when I come to die? 

Why, 

Somewheres anigh my chum. 

If ’e’s liquor ’e’ll give me some, 

If I’m dyin’ ’e’ll ’old my ’ead. 

An’ ’e’ll write ’em ’Ome when I’m dead. — 

Gawd send us a trusty chum I 

— Barrack- Room Ballad. 

My friends Mulvaney and Otheris had gone 
on a shooting expedition for one day. 
Learoyd was still in hospital, recovering from 
fever picked up in Burma. They sent me an 
invitation to join them, and were genuinely 
pained when I brought beer — almost enough 
beer to satisfy two privates of the line . . . and 
me. 

“ ’Twasn’t for that we bid you welkim, 
sorr,” said Mulvaney sulkily. “ ’Twas for the 
pleasure av your comp’ny. ” 

Ortheris came to the rescue with: “Well, ’e 
won’t be none the worse for bringin’ liquor 
with ’m. We ain’t a file o’ dooks. We’re 
bloomin’ Tommies, ye cantankris Hirishman; 
an’ ere’s your very good ’ealth!’’ 

We shot all the forenoon, and killed two 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 289 


pariah-dogs, four green parrots, sitting, one 
kite by the burning-ghaut, one snake flying, 
one mud-turtle, and eight crows. Game was 
plentiful. Then we sat down to tifiin — “bull- 
mate an’ bran-bread,’’ Mulvaney called it — by 
the side of the river, and took pot shots at the 
crocodiles in the intervals of cutting up the 
food with our only pocket-knife. Then we 
drank up all the beer, and threw the bottles 
into the water and fired at them. After that, 
we eased belts and stretched ourselves on the 
warm sand and smoked. We were too lazy to 
continue shooting. 

Ortheris heaved a big sigh, as he lay on his 
stomach with his head between his fists. 
Then he swore quietly into the blue sky. 

“F what’s that for?’’ said Mulvaney. “Have 
ye not drunk enough?’’ 

“Tott’nim Court Road, an’ a gal I fancied 
there. Wot’s the good of sodgerin’?’’ 

“Orth’ris, me son,’’ said Mulvaney hastily, 
“ ’tis more than likely you’ve got trouble in 
your inside with the beer, I feel that way 
mesilf whin my liver gets rusty.’’ 

Ortheris went on slowly, not heeding the 
interruption : 

“I’m a Tommy — a bloomin’, eight-anna, 
dog-stealin’. Tommy, with a number instead 
of a decent name. Wot’s the good o’ me? If 
I ’ad a stayed at ’ome, I might a’ married that 
gal and a’ kep’ a little shorp in the ’Ammer- 
smith ’Igh. ‘S. Orth’ris, Prac-ti-cal Taxi-der- 
mist. ’ With a stuff’d fox, like they ’as in the 
Haylesbury Dairies, in the winder, an’ a little 

19 Plain Tales 


290 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


case of blue and yaller glass heyes, an’ a little 
wife to call, ‘shorp!’ ‘shorp!’ when the doorbell 
rung. As it his, I’m on’y a Tommy — a bloom- 
in’, Gawdforsaken, beer-swillin’ Tommy. 
‘Rest on your harms — ’versed. Stan’ at — 
hease; ’Shun. ’Verse — harms. Right an’ left — 
tarrn. Slow — march. ’Alt — front. Rest on 
your harms — ’versed. With blank-cart-ridge — 
load.’ An’ that’s the end o’ me.” He was 
quoting fragments from funeral parties’ orders. 

‘‘Stop ut!” shouted Mulvaney. ‘‘Whin 
you’ve fired into nothin’ as often as me, over 
a better man than yoursilf, you will not make 
a mock av thim orders. ’Tis worse than 
whistlin’ the Dead March in barracks. An’ 
you full as a tick, an’ the sun cool, an’ all an’ 
all. I take shame for you. You’re no better 
than a pagin — you an’ your firin’ -parties an’ 
your glass-eyes. Won’t you stop ut, sorr?” 

What could I do? Could I tell Ortheris any- 
thing that he did not know of the pleasures of 
his life? I was not a chaplain nor a subaltern, 
and Ortheris had a right to speak as he thought 
fit. 

‘‘Let him run, Mulvaney,” I said. ‘‘It’s 
the beer. ’ ’ 

‘‘No! ’Tisn’t the beer,” said Mulvaney. 
‘‘I know what’s cornin’. He’s tuk this way 
now an’ agin, an’ it’s bad — it’s bad — for I’m 
fond av the bhoy. ’ ’ 

Indeed, Mulvaney seemed needlessly 
anxious; but I knew that he looked after 
Ortheris in a fatherly way. 

‘‘Let me talk, let me talk,” said Ortheris 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


291 


dreamily. “D’you stop your parrit screamin’ 
of a *ot day when the cage is a-cookin’ 'is poor 
little pink toes orf, Mulvaney?” 

“Pink toes! D’ye mane to say you’ve pink 
toes under your bullswools, ye blandanderin’,’’ 
— Mulvaney gathered himself together for a 
terrible denunciation — ‘ ‘ school-mistress ! Pink 
toes! How much bass wid the label did that 
ravin’ child dhrink?’’ 

“ ’Tain’t bass,’’ said Ortheris. “It's a bit- 
terer beer nor that. It’s ’omesickness!’’ 

“Hark to him! An’ he’s goin’ home in the 
Sherapis in the inside av four months!” 

“I don’t care. It’s all one tome. ’Ow 
d’you know I ain’t ’fraid o’ dyin’ 'fore I gets 
my papers?” He recommenced, in a sing- 
song voice, the funeral orders. 

I had never seen this side of Ortheris’ char- 
acter before, but evidently Mulvaney had, and 
attached serious importance to it. While 
Ortheris babbled, with his head on his arms, 
Mulvaney whispered to me : 

“He’s always tuk this way when he’s been 
checked over much by the childher they make 
sarjints nowadays. That an’ havin’ nothin’ 
to do. I can’t make ut out anyways. ” 

“Well, what does it matter? Let him talk 
himself through.” 

Ortheris began singing a parody of “The 
Ramrod Corps,” full of cheerful allusions to 
battle, murder and sudden death. He looked 
out across the river as he sang ; and his face 
was quite strange to me. Mulvaney caught 
me by the elbow to insure attention. 


292 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


“Matthers? It matthers everything! ‘Tis 
some sort av fit that’s on him. I’ve seen ut. 
’Twill hould him all this night, an’ in the 
middle av it, he’ll get out av his cot and go 
rakin’ in the rack for his ’coutrements. Thin 
he’ll come over to me an say: ‘I’m goin’ to 
Bombay. Answer for me in the mornin*.’ 
Thin me an’ him will fight as we’ve done 
before — him to go an’ me to hould him — an’ 
so we'll both come on the books for disturbin’ 
in barracks. I’ve belted him, an’ I’ve bruk 
his head, an’ I’ve talked to him, but ’tis no 
matter av use whin the fit’s on him. He’s as 
good a bhoy as ever -stepped whin his mind’s 
clear. I know what’s cornin’, though, this 
night in barracks. Lord send he doesn’t loose 
off whin I rise for to knock him down. ’Tis 
that that’s in my mind day an’ night. ” 

This put the case in a much less pleasant 
light, and fully accounted for Mulvaney’s 
anxiety. He seemed to be trying to coax 
Ortheris out of the “fit;” for he shouted down 
the bank where the boy was lying: 

“Listen now, you wid the ‘pore pink toes’ 
an’ the glass eyes! Did you shwim the Irri- 
waddy at night, behin’ me, as a bhoy shud ; or 
were you hidin’ under a bed, as you was at 
Ahmed Kheyl?” 

This was at once a gross insult and a direct 
lie, and Mulvaney meant it to bring on a fight. 
But Ortheris seemed shut up in some sort of a 
trance. He answered slowly, without a sign 
of irritation, in the same cadenced voice as he 
had used for his firing party orders : 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 293 


“Hi swum the Irriwaddy in the night, as 
you know, for to take the town of Lungtung- 
pen, nakid an’ without fear. Hand where I 
was at Ahmed Kheyl you know, and four 
bloomin’ Pathans know too. But that was 
summat to do, an’ I didn’t think o’ dyin’. 
Now I’m sick to go ’ome — go ’ome — go ’ome! 
No, I ain’t mammy sick, because my uncle 
brung me up, but I’m sick for London again; 
sick for the sounds of ’er; and the sights of ’er, 
and the stinks of ’er; orange peel and has- 
phalte an’ gas cornin’ in over Vaux’all Bridge. 
Sick for the rail goin’ down to Box ’111, with 
your gal on your knee an a new clay pipe in 
your face. That, an’ the Stran’ lights where 
you knows every one, an’ the Cooper that takes 
you up is a old friend that ’tuk you up before, 
when you was a little, smitchy boy lying loose 
’tween the temple an’ the dark h arches. No 
bloomin guard-mountin', no bloomin’ rotten- 
stone, nor khaki, an’ yourself your own master 
with a gal to take an’ see the humaners prac- 
tisin’ ahookin’ dead corpses out of the Serpen- 
tine o’ Sundays. An’ I lef’ all that for to 
serve the widder beyond the seas where there 
ain’t no women and there ain’t no liquor worth 
’avin’, and there ain’t nothin’ to see, nor do, 
nor say, nor feel, nor think. Lord love you, 
Stanley Orth’ris, but you’re a bigger bloomin’ 
fool than the rest o’ the reg’ment and Mul- 
vaney wired together! There’s the widder 
sittin’ at ’ome with a gold crown’d on ’er ’ead; 
and ’ere am Hi, Stanley Orth’ris, the widder 's 
property, a rootin’ fool!” 


294 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


His voice rose at the end of the sentence, and 
he wound up with a six-shot Anglo-vernacular 
oath. Mulvaney said nothing, but looked at 
me at if he expected that I could bring peace 
to poor Ortheris’ troubled brain. 

I remembered once at Rawal Pindi having 
seen a man, nearly mad with drink, sobered by 
being made a fool of. Some regiments may 
know what I mean. I hoped that we might 
shake off Ortheris in the same way, though he 
was perfectly sober. So I said : 

“What’s the use of grousing there, and 
.speaking against the widow?” 

“I didn’t!” said Ortheris. “S’elp me Gawd, 
1 never said a word agin ’er, an’ I wouldn’t — 
not if I was to desert this minute!” 

Here was my opening. “Well, you meant 
to, anyhow. What’s the use of cracking on for 
nothing? Would you slip it now if you got 
the chance?” 

“On’y try me!” said Ortheris, jumping to 
his feet as if he had been stung. 

Mulvaney jumped too. “ ’Fwhat are you 
going to do?” said he. 

“Help Ortheris down to Bombay or Karachi, 
whichever he likes. You can report that he 
separated from you before tiffin, and left his 
gun on the bank here!” 

“I’m to report that — am I?” said Mulvaney 
slowly, “Very well. If Orth’ris manes to 
desert now, and will desert now, an’ you, sorr, 
who have been a friend to me an’ to him, will 
help him to ut, I, Terence Mulvaney, on my 
oath which I’ve never bruk yet, will report as 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS 


295 


you say. But” — here he stepped up to Orth- 
eris, and shook the stock of the fowling piece 
in his face — “your fists help you, Stanley 
Orth ’r is, if ever I come across you agin!” 

“I don’t care!” said Ortheris. “I’m sick o’ 
this dorg’s life. Give me a chanst. Don’t 
play with me. Le’ me go!” 

“Strip,” said I, “and change with me, and 
then I’ll tell you what to do.” 

I hoped that the absurdity of this would 
check Ortheris; but he had kicked off his 
ammunition boots and got rid of his tunic 
almost before I had loosed my shirt-collar. 
Mulvaney gripped me by the arm : 

“The fit’s on him; the fit’s workin’ on him 
still. By my honor and sowl, we shall be 
accessiary to a desartion yet; only twenty- 
eight days, as you say, sorr, or fifty-six, but 
think o’ the shame — the black shame to him 
an’ me!” I had never seen Mulvaney so 
excited. 

But Ortheris was quite calm, and, as soon as 
he had exchanged clothes with me, and I stood 
up a private of the line, he said shortly: 
“Now! Come on. What nex’? D’ye mean 
fair? What must I do to get out o’ this ’ere 
a hell?” 

I told him that, if he would wait for two or 
three hours near the river, I would ride into 
the station and come back with one hundred 
rupees. He would, with that money in his 
pocket, walk to the nearest side-station on the 
line, about five miles away, and would there 
take a first-class ticket for Karachi. Knowing 


296 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


that he had no money on him when he went 
out shooting his regiment would not immedi- 
ately wire to the seaports, but would hunt for 
him in the native villages near the river. 
Further, no one would think of seeking a 
deserter in a first-class carriage. At Karachi, 
he was to buy white clothes and ship, if he 
could, on a cargo-steamer. 

Here he broke in. If I helped him to Karachi, 
he would arrange all the rest. Then I ordered 
him to wait where he was until it was dark 
enough for me to ride into the Station without 
my dress being noticed. Now God in His 
wisdom has made the heart of the British sol- 
dier, who is very often an unlicked ruffian, as 
soft as the heart of a little child, in order that 
he may believe in and follow his officers into 
tight and nasty places. He does not so readily 
come to believe in a “civilian,” but, when he 
does, he believes implicity and like a dog. I 
had had the honor of the friendship of Private 
Ortheris, at intervals, for more than three 
years, and we had dealt with each other as man 
b}^ man. Consequently, he considered that all 
my words were true, and not spoken lightly. 

Mulvaney and I left him in the high grass 
near the river bank, and went away, still keep- 
ing to the high grass, toward my horse. The 
shirt scratched me horribly. 

We waited nearly two hours for the dusk to 
fall and allow me to ride off. We spoke of 
Ortheris in whispers, and strained our ears to 
catch any sound from the spot where we had 


plain' TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


297 


left him. But we heard nothing except the 
wind in the plume-grass. 

“IVe bruk his head,” said Mulvaney, ear- 
nestly, “time an’ again. I’ve nearly kilt him 
wid the belt, an’ yet I can’t knock thim fits out 
av his soft head. No! An’ he’s not soft, for 
he’s reasonable an’ likely by natur’. Fwhat 
is ut? Is tut his greedin’ which is nothin’, or 
is edukasin which he niver got? You that 
think ye know things, answer me that.” 

But I found no answer. I was wondering 
how long Ortheris, in the bank of the river, 
would hold out, and whether I should be forced 
to help him to desert, as I had given my 
word. 

Just as the dusk shut down and, with a very 
heavy heart, I was beginning to saddle up my 
horse, we heard wild shouts from the river. 

The devils had departed from Private Stan- 
ley Ortheris, No. 22,639, B Company. The 
loneliness, the dusk, and the waiting had driven 
them out as I had hoped. We set off at the 
double and found him plunging about wildly 
through the grass, with his coat off — my coat 
off, I mean. He was calling for us like a mad- 
man. 

When we reached him, be was dripping with 
prespiration and trembling like a startled horse. 
We had great difficulty in soothing him. 
He complained that he was in civilian kit, and 
wanted to tear my clothes off his body. I 
ordered him to strip, and we made a second 
exchange as quickly as possible. The rasp of 
his own “gray back” shirt and the squeak of 


298 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


his boots seemed to bring him to himself. He 
put his hands before his eyes, and said : 

“Wot was it? I ain’t mad, I ain’t sunstrook, 
an’ I’ve bin an’ gone an’ said, an’ bin an’ gone 
’an done. . . . Wot ’ave I bin an’ done!’’ 

“Fwhat have you done?’’ said Mulvaney. 
“You’ve dishgraced yourself — though that’s 
no matter. You’ve dishgraced BComp’ny, an’ 
worst av all, you’ve dishgraced me! Me that 
taught you how for to walk abroad like a man 
— whin you was a dhirty, little, fish-backed 
little whimperin’ little recruity. As you are 
now, Stanley Orth’ris!’’ 

Ortheris said nothing for a while. Then he 
unslung his belt, heavy with the badges of 
half-a-dozen regiments that his own had lain 
with, and handed it over to Mulvaney. 

“I’m too little for to mill you, Mulvaney,” 
said he, “an’ 57-ou’ strook me before; but you 
can take an’ cut me in two with this ’ere if 
you like. ’ ’ 

Mulvaney turned to me. 

“Lave me talk to him, soor, ’’said Mulvaney. 

I left, and on my way home thought a good 
deal over Ortheris in particular, and my friend. 
Private Thomas Atkins, whom I love, in gen- 
eral. 

But I could not come to any conclusion of 
any kind whatever. 


' PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 299 


THE STORY OF MUHAMMAD DIN. 

“Who is the happy man? He that sees in his own 
house at home little children crowned with dust, leaping 
and falling and crying.” 

— Munchandra, translated by Professor Peterson. 

The polo-ball was an old one, scarred, 
chipped, and dinted. It stood on the mantel- 
piece among the pipe stems which Imam Din, 
khitmatgar, was cleaning for me. “Does the 
heaven-born want this ball?” said Imam Din 
deferentially. 

The heaven- born set no particular store by 
it ; but of what use was a polo-ball to a khit- 
matgar? 

“By your honor’s favor, I have a little son. 
He has seen this ball, and desires it to play 
with. I do not want it for myself.” 

No one would for an instant accuse portly 
old Imam Din of wanting to play with polo- 
balls. He carried out the battered thing into 
the veranda; and there followed a hurricane of 
joyful squeaks, a patter of small feet, and the 
thud-thud-thud of the ball rolling along the 
ground. Evidently the little son had been 
waiting outside the door to secure his treasure. 
But how had he managed to see that polo-ball? 

Next day, coming back from office half an 
hour earlier than usual, I was aware of a small 


300 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


figure in the dining-room — a tiny, plump figure 
in a ridiculously inadequate shirt, which came, 
perhaps, halfway down the tubby stomach. It 
wandered round the room, thumb in mouth, 
crooning to itself as it took stock of the pic- 
tures. Undoubtedly this was the “little 
son. “ 

He had no business in my room, of course ; 
but was so deeply absorbed in his discoveries 
that he never noticed me in the doorway. I 
stepped into the room and startled him nearly 
into a fit. He sat down on the ground with 
a gasp. His eyes opened and his mouth fol- 
lowed suit. I knew what was coming and fled 
followed by a long dry howl which reached the 
servants’ quarters far more quickly than any 
command of mine had ever done. In ten 
seconds Imam Din was in the dining-room. 
Then despairing sobs arose and I returned to 
find Imam Din admonishing the small sinner 
who was using most of his shirt as a handker- 
chief. 

“This bo}^’’ said Imam Din judicially, “is a 
budmash a big budmash. He will without doubt 
go to the jailkha7ia for his behavior.” Re- 
newed yells from the penitent, and an elabo- 
rate apology to myself from Imam Din. 

“Tell the baby, ” said I, “that the sahib is 
not angry, and take him away. ” Imam Din 
conveyed my forgiveness to the offender, who 
had now gathered all his shirt round his neck 
stringwise, and the yell subsided into a sob. 
The two set off for the door. “His name,” 
said Imam Din, as though the name were part 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 301 


of the crime, “is Muhammad Din, and he is a 
biidmash." Freed from present danger, Mu- 
hammad Din turned round, in his father’s arms, 
and said gravely: “It is true that my name 
is Muhammad Din, tahib^ but I am not a 
btidrnash. I am a man!” 

From that day dated my acquaintance with 
Muhammad Din. Never again did he come 
into my dining-room, but on the neutral ground 
of the compound, we greeted each other with 
much state, though our conversation was con- 
fined to ^"‘Talaam, iahib'' from his side and 
Salaam^ Muhammad Din’’ from mine. Daily 
on my return from office, the little white shirt, 
and the fat little body used to rise from the 
shade of the creeper-covered trellis where they 
had been hid ; and daily I checked my horse 
here, that my salutation might not be slurred 
over or given unseemly. 

Muhammad Din never had any companions. 
He used to trot about the compound, in and 
out of the castor-oil bushes, on mysterious 
errands of his own. One day I stumbled upon 
some of his handiwork far down the ground. 
He had half-buried the polo- ball in dust, and 
stuck six shriveled old marigold flowers in a 
circle round it. Outside that circle again was 
a rude square, traced out -in bits of red brick 
alternating with fragments of broken china; 
the whole bounded by a little bank of dust. 
The bhistie from the well-curb put in a plea 
for the small architect, saying that it was only 
the play of a baby and did not much disfigure 
my garden. 


302 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Heaven knows that I had no intention of 
touching the child’s work then or later; but, 
that evening, a stroll through the garden 
brought me unawares full on it; so that I 
trampled, before I knew, marigold-heads, dust- 
bank, and fragments of broken soap-dish into 
confusion past all hope of mending. Next 
morning I came upon Muhammad Din crying 
softly to himself over the ruin I had wrought. 
Some one had cruelly told him that the sahib 
was very angry with him for spoiling the gar- 
den, and had scattered his rubbish, using bad 
language the while. Muhammad Din labored 
for an hour at effacing every trace of the dust- 
bank and pottery fragments, and it was with a 
tearful and apologetic face that he said, 
'‘^Talaam taJiib,"' when I came home from the 
office. A hasty inquiry resulted in Imam Din 
informing Muhammad Din that by my singu- 
lar favor he was permitted to disport himself 
as he pleased. Whereat the child took heart 
and fell to tracing the ground-plan of an edifice 
which was to eclipse the marigold-polo-ball 
creation. 

For some months the chubby little eccen- 
tricity revolved in his hiimble orbit among the 
castor-oil bushes and in the dust; always fash- 
ioning magnificent palaces from stale flowers 
thrown away by the bearer, smooth waterworn 
pebbles, bits of broken glass, and feathers 
pulled, I fancy, from my fowls — always alone 
and always crooning to himself. 

A gayly-spotted sea-shell was dropped one 
day close to the last of his little buildings; 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 303 


and I looked that Muhammad Din should build 
something more than ordinarily splendid on 
the strength of it. Nor was I disappointed. 
He meditated for the better part of an hour, 
and his crooning rose to a jubilant song. 
Then he began tracing in dust. It would cer- 
tainly be a wondrous palace, this one, for it 
was two yards long and a yard broad in ground 
plan. But the palace was never completed. 

Next day there was no Muhammad Din at 
the head of the carriage-drive, and no ^'‘Talaam 
iahib" to welcome my return. I had grown 
accustomed to the greeting, and its omission 
troubled me. Next day. Imam Din told me 
that the child was suffering slightly from fever 
and needed quinine. He got the medicine, and 
an English doctor. 

“They have no stamina, these brats,” said 
the doctor, as he left Imam Din’s quarters. 

A week later, though I would have given 
much to have avoided it, I met on the road to 
the Musselman burying-ground Imam Din, 
accompanied by one other friend, carrying in 
his arms, wrapped in a white cloth, all that 
was left of little Muhammad Din. 


304 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


ON THE STRENGTH OF A LIKENESS. 

If your mirror be broken, look into still water; but 
have a care that you do not fall in. — Hindu Proverb. 

Next to a requited attachment, one of the 
most convenient things that a young man 
can carry about with him at the beginning of his 
career, is an unrequited attachment. It makes 
him feel important and business-like, and 
blase^ and cynical; and whenever he has a 
touch of liver, or suffers from want of exercise, 
he can mourn over his lost love, and be very 
happy in a tender, twilight fashion. 

Hannasyde’s affair of the heart had been a 
Godsend to him. It was four years old, and 
the girl had long since given up thinking of 
it. She had married and had many cares of 
her own. In the beginning, she had told Plan- 
nasyde that, “while she could never be any- 
thing more than a sister to him, she v/ould 
always take the deepest interest in his wel- 
fare.” This startlingly new and original 
remark gave Hannasyde something to think 
over for two years; and his own vanity filled 
in the other twenty-four months. Hannasyde 
was quite different from Phil Garron, but, 
none the less, had several points in common 
with that far too lucky man. 

He kept his unrequited attachment by him 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 305 


as men keep a well-smoked pipe — for comfort’s 
sake, and because it had gfrown dear in the 
using. It brought him happily through the 
Simla season. Hannasyde was not lovely. 
There was a crudity in his manners, and a 
roughness in the way in which he helped a lady 
on to her horse, that did not attract the other 
sex to him. Even if he had cast about for 
their favor, which he did not. He kept his 
wounded heart all to himself for a while. 

Then trouble came to him. All who go to 
Simla, know the slope from the telegraph to 
the public works office. Hannasyde was loaf- 
ing up the hill, one September morning be- 
tween calling hours, when a 'rickshaw came 
down in a hurry, and in the ’rickshaw sat the 
living, breathing image of the girl who had 
made him so happily unhappy. Hannasyde 
leaned against the railings and gasped. He 
wanted to run downhill after the ’rickshaw, 
but that was impossible; so he went forward 
with most of his blood in his temples. It was 
impossible for many reasons that the woman 
in the ’rickshaw could be the girl he had 
known. She was, he discovered later, the wife 
of a man from Dindigul, or Coimbatore, or 
some out-of-the-way place, and she had come 
up to Simla early in the season for the good 
of her health. She was going back to Dindi- 
gul, or wherever it was, at the end of the 
season; and in all likelihood would never 
return to Simla again, her proper Hill-station 
being Ootacamund. That night, Hannasyde, 
raw and savage from the raking up of all old 

20 Plain Tales 


306 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


feelings, took counsel with himself for one 
measured hour. What he decided upon was 
this; and you must decide for yourself how 
much genuine affection for the old love, and 
how much a very natural inclination to go 
abroad and enjoy himself, affected the decis- 
ion. Mrs. Landys-Haggert would never in all 
human likelihood cross his path again. So 
whatever he did didn’t much matter. She 
was marvelously like the girl who “took a deep 
interest” and the rest of the formula. All 
things considered, it would be pleasant to make 
the acquaintance of Mrs. Landys-Haggert, 
and for a little time — only a very little time — 
to make believe that he was with Alice Chisane 
again. Every one is more or less mad on one 
point. Hannasyde’s particular monomania 
was his old love, Alice Chisane. 

He made it his business to get introduced 
to Mrs. Haggert, and the introduction pros- 
pered. He also made it his business to see 
as much as he could of that lady. When a man 
is in earnest as to interviews, the facilities 
which Simla offers are startling. There are 
garden-parties and tennis-parties and picnics 
and luncheons at Annandale, and rifle-matches 
and dinners and balls; beside rides and walks, 
which are matters of private arrangement. 
Hannasyde had started with the intention of 
seeing a likeness, and he ended by doing much 
more. He wanted to be deceived, he meant 
to be deceived, and he deceived himself very 
thoroughly. Not only were the face and 
figure, the face and figure of Alice Chisane, 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


307 


but the voice and lower tones were exactly the 
same, and so were the turns of speech ; and the 
little mannerisms, that every woman has, of 
gait and gesticulation, were absolutely and 
identically the same. The turn of the head 
was the same ; the tired look in the eyes at the 
end of a long walk was the same; the stoop 
and wrench over the saddle to hold in a pull- 
ing horse was the same ; and once, most mar- 
velous of all, Mrs. Landys-Haggert singing to 
herself in the next room, while Hannasyde was 
waiting to take her for a ride, hummed, note 
for note, with a throaty quiver of the voice 
in the second line: “Poor Wandering One!” 
exactly as Alice Chisane had hummed it for 
Hannasyde in the dusk of an English draw- 
ing-room. In the actual woman herself — in 
the soul of her — there was not the least like- 
ness; she and Alice Chisane being cast in differ- 
ent moulds. But all that Hannasyde wanted to 
know and See and think about was this mad- 
dening and perplexing likeness of face and 
voice and manner. He was bent on making a 
fool of himself that way; and he was in no 
sort disappointed. 

Open and obvious devotion from any sort of 
man is always pleasant to any sort of woman ; 
but Mrs. Landys-Haggert, being a woman of 
the world, could make nothing of Hannasyde’s 
admiration. 

He would take any amount of trouble — he 
was a selfish man habitually — to meet and 
forestall, if possible, her wishes. Anything 
she told him to do was law; and he was, there 


308 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


could be no doubting it, fond of her company 
so long as she talked to him, and kept on talk- 
ing about trivialities. But when she launched 
into expression of her personal view and her 
wrongs, those small social differences that 
make the spice of Simla life, Hannasyde was 
neither pleased nor interested. He didn’t 
want to know anything about Mrs. Landys- 
Haggert, or her experiences in the past — she 
had traveled nearly all over the world, and 
could talk cleverly — he wanted the likeness of 
Alice Chisane before his eyes and her voice 
in his ears. Anything outside that, reminding 
him of another personality, jarred, and he 
showed that it did. 

Under the new post-office, one evening, Mrs. 
Landys-Haggert turned on him, and spoke 
her mind shortly and without warning. “Mr. 
Hannasyde,” said she, “will you be good 
enough to explain why you have appointed 
yourself my special cavalier servenief I don't 
understand it. But 1 am perfectly certain, 
somehow or other, that you don’t care the 
least little bit in the world for me.” This 
seems to support, by the way, the theory that 
no man can act or tell lies to a woman without 
being found out. Hannasyde was taken off 
his guard. His defense never was a strong 
one, because he was always thinking of him- 
self, and he blurted out, before he knew what 
he was saying, this inexpedient answer: “No 
more I do.” 

The queerness of the situation and the reply, 
made Mrs. Landys-Haggert laugh. Then it 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 309 


all came out; and at the end of Hannasyde’s 
lucid explanation, Mrs. Haggert said, with 
the least little touch of scorn in her voice: “So 
I’m to act as the lay-figure for you to hang 
the rags of your tattered affections on, am I?” 

Hannasyde didn’t see what answer was re- 
quired, and he devoted himself generally and 
vaguely to the praise of Alice Chisane, which 
was unsatisfactory. Now it is to be thoroughly 
made clear that Mrs. Haggert had not the 
shadow of a ghost of an interest in Hannasyde. 
Only . . . only no woman likes being made 
love through instead of to — specially on behalf 
of a musty divinity of four years’ standing. 

Hannasyde did not see that he made any 
very particular exhibition of himself. He was 
glad to find a sympathetic soul in the arid 
wastes of Simla. 

When the season ended, Hannasyde went 
down to his own place and Mrs. Haggert to 
hers. “It was like making love to a ghost,’’ 
said Hannasyde to himself, “and it doesn’t 
matter; and now I’ll get to my work.’’ But he 
found himself thinking steadily of the Hag- 
gert-Chisane ghost; and he could not be cer- 
tain whether it was Haggert or Chisane that 
made up the greater part of the pretty phan- 
tom. 

He got understanding a month later. 

A peculiar point of this peculiar country is 
the way in which a heartless government trans- 
fers men from one end of the empire to the 
other. You can never be sure of getting rid 
of a friend or an enemy till he or she dies. 


310 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


There was a case once — but that’s another 
story. 

Haggert’s department ordered him up from 
Dindigul to the frontier at two days’ notice, 
and he went through, losing money at every 
step, from Dindigul to his station. He 
dropped Mrs. Haggert at Lucknow, to stay 
with some friends there, to take part in a big 
ball at the Chutter Munzil, and to come on 
when he had made the new home a little com- 
fortable. Lucknow was Hannasyde’s station, 
and Mrs. Haggert stayed a week there. Han- 
nasyde went to meet her. The train came in, 
and he discovered that which he had been 
thinking of for the past month. The unwis- 
dom of his conduct also struck him. The 
Lucknow week, with two dances, and an un- 
limited quantity of rides together, clinched 
matters; and Hannasyde found himself pacing 
this circle of thought: He adored Alice Chi- 
sane, at least he had adored her. And he ad- 
mired Mrs. Landys- Haggert because she was 
like Alice Chisane. But Mrs. Landys- Hag- 
gert was not in the least like Alice Chisane, 
being a thousand times more adorable. Now 
Alice Chisane was “the bride of another,” and 
so was Mrs. Landys- Haggert, and a good and 
honest wife too. Therefore, he, Hannasyde, 
was . . . here he called himself several hard 
names, and wished that he had been wise in 
the beginning. 

Whether Mrs. Landys-Haggert saw what 
was going on in his mind, she alone knows. 
He seemed to take an unqualified interest in 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 311 


everything connected with herself, as distin- 
guished from the Alice Chisane likeness, and 
he said one or two things which, if Alice 
Chisane had been still betrothed to him, could 
scarcely have been excused, even on the 
grounds of the likeness. But Mrs. Haggert 
turned the remarks aside, and spent a long 
time in making Hannasyde see what a com- 
fort and a pleasure she had been to him be- 
cause of her strange resemblance to his old 
love. Hannasyde groaned in his saddle and 
said, “Yes, indeed,” and busied himself with 
preparations for her departure to the frontier, 
feeling very small and miserable. 

The last day of her stay at Lucknow came, 
and Hannasyde saw her off at the railway sta- 
tion. She was very grateful for his kindness 
and the trouble he had taken, and smiled pleas- 
antly and sympathetically as one who knew 
the Alice Chisane reason of that kindness. 
And Hannasyde abused the coolies with the 
luggage, and hustled the. people on the plat- 
form, and prayed that the roof might fall in 
and slay him. 

As the train went out slowly, Mrs. Landys- 
Haggert leaned out of the window to say good 
by: “On second thoughts au revoir, Mr. Han- 
nasyde. I go home in the spring, and perhaps 
I may meet you in town.” 

Hannasyde shook hands, and said very earn- 
estly and adoringly: “I hope to heaven I shall 
never see your face again!” 

And Mrs, Haggert understood. 


312 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


WRESSLEY OF THE FOREIGN OFFICE. 

I closed and drew for my love’s sake, 

That now is false to me, 

And I slew the Riever of Tarrant Moss, 

And set Dumeny free. 

And ever they give me praise and gold. 

And ever I moan my loss, 

For I struck the blow for my false love’s sake, 
And not for the men at the Moss. 

— Tarrant Moss. 

One of the many curses of our life out here 
is the want of atmosphere in the painter’s 
sense. There are no half- tints worth noticing. 
Men stand out all crude and raw, with nothing 
to tone them down, and nothing to scale them 
against. They do their work, and grow to 
think that there is nothing but their work, and 
nothing like their work, and that they are the 
real pivots on which the administration turns. 
Here is an instance of this feeling. A half- 
caste clerk was ruling forms in a pay office. 
He said to me: “Do you know what would 
happen if I added or took away one single line 
on this sheet?” Then with the air of a con- 
spirator: “It would disorganize the whole of 
the treasury payments throughout the whole 
of the Presidency circle! Think of that!” 

If men had not his delusion as to the ultra- 
importance of their own particular employ- 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


813 


ments, I suppose that they would sit down and 
kill themselves. But their weakness is weari- 
some, particularly when the listener knows 
that he himself commits exactly the same 
sin. 

Even the secretariat believes that it does 
good when it asks an overdriven executive 
officer to take a census of wheat-weevils 
through a district of five thouand square miles. 

There was a man once in the foreign office — 
a man who had grown middle-aged in the 
department, and was commonly said, by irrev- 
erent juniors, to be able to repeat Aitchison’s 
“Treatise and Sunnuds” backward, in his 
sleep. What he did with his stored knowledge 
only the secretary knew and he, naturally, 
would not publish the news abroad. This 
man’s name was Wressley, and it was the Shib- 
boleth, in those days to say: “Wressley knows 
more about the Central Indian States than any 
living man.” If you did not say this you were 
considered one of mean understanding. 

Nowadays, the man who says that he knows 
the ravel of the intertribal complications 
across the border is of more use; but in Wres- 
sley’s time, much attention was paid to the Cen- 
tral Indian States. They were called “foci” 
and “factors,” and all manner of imposing 
names. 

And here the curse of Anglo-Indian life fell 
heavily. When Wressley lifted up his voice, 
and sp@ke about such-and-such a succession to 
such-and-such a throne, the foreign office were 
silent, and heads of departments repeated the 


314 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


last two or three words of Wressley’s sen- 
tences, and tacked “yes, yes,” on to them, and 
knew that they were “assisting the empire to 
grapple with serious political contingencies. ” 
In most big undertakings, one or two men do 
the work while the rest sit near and talk till 
the ripe decorations begin to fall. 

Wressley was the working-member of the 
foreign office firm, and, to keep him up to his 
duties when he showed signs of flagging, he 
was made much of by his superiors and told 
what a fine fellow he was. He did not re- 
quire coaxing, because he was of tough build, 
but what he received confirmed him in the 
belief that there was no one quite so absolutely 
and imperatively necessary to the stability of 
India as Wressley of the foreign office. There 
might be other good men, but the known, 
honored and trusted man among men was 
Wressley of the foreign office. We had a vice- 
roy in those days who knew exactly when to 
“gentle” a fractious big man, and to hearten 
up a collar-galled little one, and so keep all 
his team level. He conveyed to Wressley the 
impression which I have just set down ; and 
even tough men are apt to be disorganized by 
a viceroy’s praise. There was a case once — 
but that is another story. 

All India knew Wressley’s name and office — 
it was in Thacker and Spink’s directory — but 
who he was personally, or what he did, or what 
his special merits were, not fifty men knew or 
cared. His work filled all his time, and he 
found no leisure to cultivate acquaintances be- 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 315 


yond those of dead Rajput chiefs with Ahir 
blots in their ’scutcheons. Wressley would 
have made a very good clerk in the Herald’s 
College had he not been a Bengal civilian. 

Upon a day, between office and office, great 
trouble came to Wressley — overwhelmed him, 
knocked him down, and left him gasping as 
though he had been a little schoolboy. W ith- 
out reason, against prudence, and at a mo- 
ment’s notice, he fell in love with a frivolous, 
golden-haired girl who used to tear about 
Simla Mall on a high, rough Waler, with a 
blue velvet jockey-cap crammed over her eyes. 
Her name was Venner — Tillie Venner — and 
she was delightful. She took Wressley’s heart 
at a hand-gallop, and Wressley found that it 
was not good for man to live alone ; even with 
half the foreign office records in his presses. 

Then Simla laughed, for Wressley in love 
was slightly ridiculous. He did his best to in- 
terest the girl in himself — that is to say, his 
work — and she, after the manner of women, 
did her best to appear interested in what, be- 
hind his back, she called “Mr. Wressley ’s 
Wajahs;’’ for she lisped very prettily. She 
did not understand one little thing about them, 
but she acted as if she did. Men have mar- 
ried on that sort of error before now. 

Providence, however, had care of Wressley. 
He was immensely struck with Miss Venner’s 
intelligence. He would have been more im- 
pressed had he heard her private and confiden- 
tial accounts of his calls. He held peculiar 
notions as to the wooing of girls. He said 


316 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


that the best work of a man’s career should be 
laid reverently at their feet. Ruskin writes 
something like this somewhere, I think; but 
in ordinary life a few kisses are better and 
save time. 

About a month after he had lost his heart to 
Miss Venner, and had been doing his work 
vilely in consequence, the first idea of his “Na- 
tive Rule in Central India” struck Wressley 
and filled him with joy. It was, as he sketched 
it, a great thing — the work of his life — a really 
comprehensive survey of a most fascinating 
subject — to be written with all the special and 
laborously acquired knowledge of Wressley 
of the foreign office — a gift fit for an empress. 

He told Miss Venner that he was going to 
take leave, and hoped, on his return, to bring 
her a present worthy of her acceptance. 
Would she wait? Certainly she would. Wress- 
ley drew seventeen hundred rupees a month. 
She would wait a year for that. Her mamma 
would help her to wait. 

So Wressley took one year’s leave and all the 
available documents, about a truck-load, that 
he could lay hands on, and went down to Cen- 
tral India with his notion hot in his head. He 
began his book in the land he was writing of. 
Too much official correspondence had made 
him a frigid workman, and he must have 
guessed that he needed the white light of local 
color on his palette. This is a dangerous paint 
for amateurs to play with. 

Heavens, how that man worked! He 
caught his rajahs, analyzed his rajahs, and 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 317 


traced them up into the mists of time and be- 
yond, with their queens and their concubines. 
He dated and cross- dated, pedigreed and triple- 
pedigreed, compared, noted, connoted, wove, 
strung, sorted, selected, inferred, calendared 
and counter-calendared for ten hours a day. 
And, because this sudden and new light of 
love was upon him, he turned those dry bones 
of history and dirty records of misdeeds into 
things to weep or to laugh over as he pleased. 
His heart and soul were at the end of his pen, 
and they got into the ink. He was dowered 
with sympathy, insight, humor and style for 
two hundred and thirty .days and nights; and 
his book was a book. He had his vast special 
knowledge with him, so to speak; but the 
spirit, the woven-in human touch, the poetry 
and the power of the output, were beyond 
all special knowledge. But I doubt whether 
he knew the gift was in him then, and thus 
he may have lost some happiness. He was 
toiling for Tillie Venner, not for himself. Men 
often do their best work blind, for some one 
else’s sake. 

Also, though this has nothing to do with 
the story, in India where every one knows 
every one else, you can watch men being 
driven, by the women who govern them, out 
of the rank-and-file and sent to take up points 
alone. A good man once started, goes for- 
ward; but an average man, so soon as the 
woman loses interest in his success as a tribute 
to her power, comes back to the battalion and 
is no more heard- of. 


318 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Wressley bore the first copy of his book to 
Simla and, blushing and stammering, pre- 
sented it to Miss Venner. She read a little of 
it. I give her review verbatim: “Oh, your 
book? It’s all about those how-wid wajahs. 
I didn’t understand it.” 

Wressley of the foreign office was broken, 
smashed — I am not exaggerating — by this one 
frivolous little girl. All that he could say 
feebly was: “But — but it’s my magnum opus! 
The work of my life.’’ Miss Venner did not 
know what magnum opus meant ; but she knew 
that Captain Kerrington had won three races 
at the last Gymkhana. Wressley didn’t press 
her to wait for him any longer. He had sense 
enough for that. 

Then came the reaction after the year’s 
strain, and Wressley went back to the foreign 
office and his “wajahs’’ a compiling, gazet- 
teering, report-writing hack, who would have 
been dear at three hundred rupees a month. 
He abided by Miss Venner’ s review. Which 
proves that the inspiration in the book was 
purely temporary and unconnected with him- 
self. Nevertheless, he has no rij. it to sink, in 
a hill-tarn, five packing-cases, feocighi; up at 
enormous expense from Bombay, of the best 
book of Indian history ever written. 

When he sold off before retiring, some years 
later, I was turning over his shelves, and came 
across the only existing copy of “Native Rule 
in Central India,’’ the copy that Miss Venner 
could not understand. I read it, sitting on his 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 319 


mule-trucks as long as the light lasted, and 
offered him his own price for it. He looked 
over my shoulder for a few pages and said to 
himself drearily: 

“Now, how in the world did I come to write 
such damned good stuff as that?” 

Then to me: 

“Take it and keep it. Write one of your 
penny-farthing yarns about its birth. Per- 
haps — perhaps the whole business may have 
been ordained to that end.” 

Which, knowing what Wressley of the 
foreign office was once, struck me as about 
the bitterest thing that I had ever heard a man 
say of his own work. 


320 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


BY WORD OF MOUTH. 

Not though you die to-night, O Sweet, and wail, 

A specter at my door. 

Shall mortal Fear make Love immortal fail — 

I shall but love you more. 

Who, from Death’s house returning, give me still 
One moment’s comfort in my matchless ill. 

This tale may be explained by those who 
know how souls are made, and where the 
bounds of the possible are put down. I have 
lived long enough in this country to know 
that it is best to know nothing, and can only 
write the story as it happened. 

Dumoise was our civil engineer at Meridki, 
and we called him “Dormouse,” because he 
was a round, little, sleepy little man. He was 
a good doctor and never quarreled with any 
one, not even with our deputy commissioner, 
who had the manners of a bargee and the 
tact of a horse. He married a girl as round 
and as sleepy-looking as himself. She was a 
Miss Hillardyce, daughter of “Squash” Hil- 
lardyce of the Berars, who married his chief’s 
daughter by mistake. But that is another 
story. 

A honeymoon in India is seldom more than 
a week long ; but there is nothing to hinder a 
couple from extending it over two or three 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 321 


years. This is a delightful country for married 
folk who are wrapped up in one another. 
They can live absolutely alone and without 
interruption — just as the Dormice did. These 
two little people retired from the world after 
their marriage, and were very happy. They 
were forced, of course, to give occasional din- 
ners, but they made no friends thereby, and 
the Station went its own way and forgot them; 
only saying, occasionally, that Dormouse was 
the best of good fellows, though Dull. A civil 
surgeon who never quarrels is a rarity, ap- 
preciated as such. 

Few people can afford to play Robinson 
Crusoe anywhere, least of all in India, where 
we are few in the land, and very much depen- 
dent on each other’s kind offices. Dumoise 
was wrong in shutting himself from the world 
for a year, and he discovered his mistake when 
an epidemic of typhoid broke out in the Sta- 
tion in the heart of the cold weather, and his 
wife went down. He was a shy little man, 
and five days were wasted before he realized 
that Mrs. Dumoise was burning with some- 
thing worse than simple fever, and three days 
more passed before he ventured to call on 
Mrs. Shute, the engineer’s wife, and timidly 
speak about his trouble. Nearly every 
household in India knows that doctors are 
very helpless in typhoid. The battle must be 
fought out between death and the nurses, 
minute by minute and degree by degree. 
Mrs. Shute almost boxed Dumoise ’s ears for 
what she called his “criminal delay,” and went 

21 Plain Tales 


322 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


off at once to look after the poor girl. We had 
seven cases of typhoid in the Station that win- 
ter, and as the average of death is about one 
in every five cases, we felt certain that we 
should lose somebody. But all did their best. 
The women sat up nursing the women, and 
the men turned to and tended the bachelors 
who were down, and we wrestled with those 
typhoid cases for fifty-six days, and brought 
them through the valley of the shadow in tri- 
umph. But just when we thought all was over, 
and were going to give a dance to celebrate 
the victory, little Mrs. Dumoise got a relapse 
and died in a week and the Station went to the 
funeral. Dumoise broke down utterly at the 
brink of the grave, and had to be taken away. 

After the death, Dumoise crept into his own 
house and refused to be comforted. He did 
his duties perfectly, but we all felt that he 
should go on leave, and the other men of his 
own service told him so. Dumoise was very 
thankful for the suggestion — he was thankful 
for anything in those days — and went to Chini 
on a walking-tour. Chini is some twenty 
marches from Simla, in the heart of the Hills, 
and the scenery is good if you are in trouble. 
You pass through big, still deodar-forests, and 
under big, still cliffs, and over big, still grass- 
downs swelling like a woman’s breasts; and 
the wind across the grass, and the rain among 
the deodars says: “Hush — hush — hush.’’ So 
little Dumoise was packed off to Chini, to wear 
down his grief with a full-plate camera, and a 
rifle. He took also a useless bearer, because 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


323 


the man had been bis wife’s favorite servant. 
He was idle and a thief, but Dumoise trusted 
everything to him. 

On his way back from Chini, Dumoise 
turned aside to Bagi, through the forest re- 
serve which is on the spur of Mount Huttoo. 
Some men who have traveled more than a 
little say that the march from Kotegarh to 
Bagi is one of the finest in creation. It runs 
through dark wet forest, and ends suddenly 
in bleak, nipped hillside and black rocks. 
Bagi Dak- Bungalow is open to all the winds 
and is bitterly cold. Few people go to Bagio 
Perhaps that was the reason why Dumoise 
went there. He halted at seven in the eve- 
ning, and his bearer went down the hillside 
to the village to engage coolies for the next 
day’s march. The sun had set, and the night- 
winds were beginning to croon among the 
rocks. Dumoise leaned on the railing of the 
veranda, waiting for his bearer to return. 
The man came back almost immediately after 
he had disappeared, and at such a rate that 
Dumoise fancied he must have crossed a bear. 
He was running as hard as he could up the 
face of the hill. 

But there was no bear to account for his 
terror. He raced to the veranda and fell 
down, the blood spurting from his nose and 
his face iron-gray. Then he gurgled: “I have 
seen the Memsahib! I have seen the Mem- 
sahib r' 

“Where?” said Dumoise. 

“Down there, walking on the road to the vil- 


324 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


lage. She was ia a blue dress, and she lifted 
the veil of her bonnet and said: ‘Ram Dass, 
give my salaams to the sahib, and tell him 
that I shall meet him next month at Nuddea. ’ 
Then I ran away, because I was afraid.” 

What Dumoise said or did I do not know. 
Ram Dass declares that he said nothing, but 
walked up and down the veranda all the cold 
night, waiting for the Memsahib to come up 
the hill, and stretching out his arms into the 
dark like a madman. But no Memsahib came, 
and, next day, he went on to Simla cross-ques- 
tioning the bearer every hour. 

Ram Dass could only say that he had met 
Mrs. Dumoise and that she had lifted up her 
veil and given him the message which he had 
faithfully repeated to Dumoise. To this state- 
ment Ram Dass adhered. He did not know 
where Nuddea was, had no friends at Nuddea, 
and would most certainly not go to Nuddea; 
even if his pay were doubled. 

Nuddea is in Bengal, and has nothing what- 
ever to do with a doctor serving in the Punjab. 
It must be more than twelve hundred miles 
from Meridki. 

Dumoise went through Simla without halt- 
ing, and returned to Meridki there to take over 
charge from the man who had been officiating 
for him during his tour. There were some dis- 
pensary accounts to be explained, and some 
recent orders of the surgeon-general to be 
noted, and altogether, the taking-over was a 
full day’s work. In the evening, Dumoise told 
his locum tenens, who was an old friend of his 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 325 

bachelor days, what had happened at Bagi; 
and the man said that Ram Dass might as 
well have chosen Tuticorin while he was about 
it. 

At that moment, a telegraph-peon came in 
with a telegram from Simla, ordering Dumoise 
not to take over charge at Meridki, but to go 
at once to Nuddea on special duty. There 
was a nasty outbreak of cholera at Nuddea, 
and the Bengal government, being short- 
handed, as usual, had borrowed a surgeon from 
the Punjab. 

Dumoise threw the telegram across the table 
and said: “Well?” 

The other doctor said nothing. It was all he 
could say. 

Then he remembered that Dumoise had 
passed through Simla on his way from Bagi ; 
and thus might, possibly, have heard the news. 

He tried to put the question, and the im- 
plied suspicion into words, but Dumoise stopped 
him with: “If I had desired that, I should 
never have come back from Chini. I was 
shooting there. I wish to live for I have 
things to do . . . but I shall not be sorry. ’’ 

The other man bowed his head, and helped, 
in the twilight, to pack up Dumoise’s just 
opened trunks. Ram Dass entered with the 
lamps. 

“Where is the sahib going?” he asked. 

“To Nuddea, ” said Dumoise softly. 

Ram Dass clawed Dumoise ’s knees and boots 
and begged him not to go. Dam Rass wept 
and howled till he was turned out of the room. 


326 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Then he wrapped up all his belongings and 
came back to ask for a character. He was not 
going to Nuddea to see his sahib die, and, per- 
haps, to die himself. 

So Dumoise gave the man his wages and 
went down to Nuddea alone ; the other doctor 
bidding him good-by as one under. sentence of 
death. 

Eleven days later he had joined his Memsahib ; 
and the Bengal government had to borrow a 
fresh doctor to cope with that epidemic at 
Nuddea. 

The first importation lay dead in Chooadanga 
Dak-Bungalow. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 327 


TO BE FILED FOR REFERENCE. 

By the hoof of the Wild Goat uptossed 
From the Cliff where She lay in the Sun, 

Fell the Stone 

To the Tarn where the daylight is lost; 

So She fell from the light of the Sun, 

And alone. 

Now the fall was ordained from the first. 

With the Goat and the Cliff and the Tam, 

But the Stone 

Knows only Her life is accursed, 

As She sinks in the depths of the Tara, 

And alone. 

Oh, Thou who hast builded the world! 

Oh, Thou who has lighted the Sun ! 

Oh, Thou who hast darkened the Tarn ! 

Judge Thou 

The Sin of the Stone that was hurled 
By the Goat from the light of the Sun, 

As She sinks in the mire of the Tarn, 

Even now — even now — even now ! 
—From the Unpublished Papers of McIntosh Jellaludin. 

“Say, is it dawn, is it dusk in the Bower, 
Thou whom I long for, who longest for me? 

Oh, be it night — be it “ 

Here he fell over a little camel colt that was 
sleeping in the serai where the horse-traders 
and the best of the blackguards from Central 
Asia live; and, because he was very drunk, 
indeed, and the night was dark, he could not 
rise again till I helped him. That was the 


328 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


beginning of my acquaintance with McIntosh 
Jellaludin. When a loafer, and drunk, sings 
“The Song of the Bower,” he must be worth 
cultivating. He got off the camel’s back and 
said rather thickly: “I — I — I’m a bit screwed, 
but a dip in Loggerhead will put me right 
again ; and I say, have you spoken to Symonds 
about the mare’s knees?” 

Now Loggerhead was six thousand weary 
miles away from us, close to Mesopotamia, 
where you mustn’t fish, and poaching is im- 
possible, and Charley Symonds’ stable a half- 
mile further across the paddocks. It was 
strange to hear all the old names, on a May 
night, among the horses and camels of the 
Sultan Caravanserai. Then the man seemed 
to remember himself and sober down at the 
same time. He leaned against the camel and 
pointed to a corner of the serai where a lamp 
was burning: 

“I live there,” said he, “and I should be 
extremely obliged if you would be good enough 
to help my mutinous feet thither; for I am 
more than usually drunk — most — most phe- 
nomenally tight. But not in respect to my 
head. ‘My brain cries out against’ —how does 
it go? But my head rides on the — rolls on the 
dunghill I should have said, and controls the 
qualm. ” 

I helped him through the gangs of tethered 
horses, and he collapsed on the edge of the 
veranda in front of the line of native quarters. 

“Thanks — a thousand thanks! O Moon and 
little, little stars! To think that a man should 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


329 


SO shamelessly. . . . Infamous liquor, too. 
Ovid in exile drank no worse. Better. It 
was frozen. Alas! I had no ice. Good-night. 
I would introduce you to my wife were I sober 
— or she civilized. ’ ’ 

A native woman came out of the darkness of 
the room, and began calling the man names; 
so I went away. He was the most interesting 
loafer that I had had the pleasure of knowing 
for a long time ; and later on he became a 
friend of mine. He was a tall, well-built, fair 
man, fearfully shaken with drink, and he 
looked nearer fifty than the thirty-five which, 
he said, was his real age. When a man begins 
to sink in India, and is not sent home by his 
friends as soon as may be, he falls very low 
from a respectable point of view. By the time 
that he changes his creed, as did McIntosh, he 
is past redemption. In most big cities, 
natives will tell you of two or three sahibs^ 
generally low-caste, who have turned Hindu 
or Mussulman, and who live more or less as 
such. But it is not often that you can get to 
know them. As McIntosh himself used to 
say: “If I change my religion for my stom- 
ach’s sake, I do not seek to become a martyr 
to missionaries, nor am I anxious for noto- 
riety. ’ ’ 

At the outset of acquaintance McIntosh 
warned me. “Remember this: I am not an 
object for charity. I require neither your 
money, your food, nor your cast-off raiment. 
I am that rare animal, a self-supporting drunk- 
ard. If you choose, I will smoke with you, for 


330 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


the tobacco of the bazars does not, I admit, 
suit my palate ; and I will borrow any books 
which you may not specially value. It is more 
than likely that I shall sell them for bottles of 
excessively fifthy country-liquors. In return, 
you shall share such hospitality as my house 
affords. Here is a charpoy on which two can 
sit, and it is possible that there may, from time 
to time, be food in that platter. Drink, un- 
fortunately, you will find on the premises at 
any hour; and thus I make you welcome to all 
my poor establishments. ’ ’ 

I was admitted to the McIntosh household — 
I and my good tobacco. But nothing else. 
Unluckily, one cannot visit a loafer in the 
serai by day. Friends buying horses would 
not understand it. Consequently, I was 
obliged to see McIntosh after dark. He 
laughed at this, and said simply; “You are 
perfectly right. When I enjoyed a position in 
society, rather higher than yours, I should have 
done exactly the same thing. Good heavens! 
I was once” — he spoke as though he had fallen 
from the command of a regiment — “an Oxford 
man!” This accounted for the reference to 
Charley Symonds’ table. 

“You,” said McIntosh slowly, “have not 
had that advantage ; but, to outward appear- 
ance, you do not seem possessed of a craving 
for strong drinks. On the whole, I fancy that 
you are the luckier of the two. Yet I am not 
certain. You are — forgive my saying so even 
while I am smoking your excellent tobacco — 
painfully ignorant of many things.” We 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 331 


were sitting together on the edge of his bed- 
stead, for he owned no chairs, watching the 
horses being watered for the night, while the 
native woman was preparing dinner. 1 did 
not like being patronized by a loafer, but I was 
his guest for the time being, though he owned 
only one very torn alpaca-coat and a pair of 
trousers made out of gunny bags. He took 
the pipe out of his mouth, and went on judici- 
ally: “All things considered, I doubt whether 
you are the luckier. I do not refer to your 
extremely limited classical attainments, or 
your excruciating quantities, but to your gross 
ignorance of matters more immediately under 
your notice. That for instance. “ He pointed 
to a woman cleaning a samovar near the well 
in the center of the serai. She was fliching 
the water out of the spout in regular cadenced 
jerks. 

“There are ways and ways of cleaning 
samovars. If you knew why she was doing 
her work in that particular fashion, you would 
know what the Spanish monk meant when he 
said : 


“ T the Trinity illustrate, 

Drinking watered orange-pulp — 

In three sips the Aryan frustrate, 

While he drains his at one gulp’ — 

and many other things which now are hidden 
from your eyes. However, Mrs. McIntosh has 
prepared dinner. Let us come and eat after 
the fashion of the people of the country — of 
whom, by the way, you know nothing.” 


332 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


The native woman dipped her hand in the 
dish with us. This was wrong. The wife 
should always wait until the husband has 
eaten. McIntosh Jellaludin apologized, say- 
ing: 

“It is an English prejudice which I have 
not been able to overcome ; and she loves me. 
Why, I have never been able to understand. 
I foregathered with her at Jullundur, three 
years ago, and she has remained with me ever 
since. I believe her to be moral, and know 
her to be skilled in cookery. ’’ 

He patted the woman’s head as he spoke, 
and she cooed softly. She was not pretty to 
look at. 

McIntosh never told me what position he 
had held before his fall. He was, when sober, 
a scholar and a gentleman. When drunk, he 
was rather more of the first than the second. 
He used to get drunk about once a week for 
two days. On those occasions the native 
woman tended him while he raved in all 
tongues except his own. One day, indeed, he 
began reciting “Atalanta in Calydon,” and 
went through it to the end, beating time to 
the swing of the verse with a bedstead-leg. 
But he did most of his ravings in Greek or 
German. The man’s mind was a perfect rag- 
bag of useless things. Once, when he was be- 
ginning to get sober, he told me that I was the 
only rational being in the “Inferno” into 
which he had descended — a Virgil in the 
shades, he said — and that, in return for my 
tobacco, he would, before he died, give me the 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 335 


materials of a new “Inferno” that should 
make me greater than Dante. Then he fell 
asleep on a horse blanket and woke up quite 
calm. 

“Man, ” said he, “when you have reached 
the uttermost depths of degradation, little in- 
cidents which would vex a higher life, are to 
you of no consequence. Last night, my soul 
was among the gods ; but I make no doubt that 
my bestial body was writhing down here in the 
garbage. ’ ’ 

“You were abominably drunk if that’s what 
you mean,” I said. “I was drunk — filthily 
drunk ! I who am the son of a man with whom 
you have no concern — I who was once fellow 
of a college whose buttery-hatch you have not 
seen. I was loathsomely drunk. But consider 
how lightly I am touched. It is nothing to 
me. Less than nothing; for I do not even 
feel the headache which should be my portion. 
Now, in a higher life, how ghastly would have 
been my punishment, how bitter my repent- 
ance ! Believe me, my friend with the neg- 
lected education, the highest is as the lowest — 
always supposing each degree extreme.” 

He turned round on the blanket, put his 
head between his fists and continued: 

“On the soul which I have lost and on the 
conscience which I have killed, I tell you that 
I cannot feel! I am as the gods, knowing 
good and evil, but untouched by either. Is 
this enviable or is it not?” 

When a man has lost the warning of “next 
morning’s head,” he must be in a bad state, I 


334 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


answered, looking at McIntosh on the blanket, 
with his hair over his eyes and his lips blue- 
white, that I did not think the insensibility 
good enough. 

“For pity’s sake, don’t say that! I tell you, 
it is good and most enviable. Think of my 
consolations!’’ 

“Have you so many, then, McIntosh?’’ 

“Certainly, your attempts at sarcasm, which 
is essentially the weapon of a cultured man, 
are crude. First, my attainments, my classi- 
cal and literary knowledge, blurred, perhaps, 
by immoderate drinking — which reminds me 
that before my soul went to the gods last 
night, I sold the Pickering Horace you so 
kindly lent me. Ditta Mull the clothesmail 
has it. It fetched ten annas, and may be re- 
deemed for a rupee — but still infinitely super- 
ior to yours. Secondly, the abiding affection 
of Mrs. McIntosh, best of wives. Thirdly, a 
monument, more enduring than brass, which 
I have built up in the seven years of my deg- 
radation. ’’ 

He stopped here, and crawled across the 
room for a drink of water. He was very shaky 
and sick. 

He referred several times to his “treasure” 
— some great possession that he owned — but I 
held this to be the raving of drink. He was 
as poor and as proud as he could be. His 
manner was not pleasant, but he knew enough 
about the natives, among whom seven years of 
his life had been spent, to make his acquaint- 
ance worth having. He used actually to laugh 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 335 


at Strickland as an ignorant man — “ignorant 
West and East” — he said. His boast was, 
first, that he was an Oxford man of rare and 
shining parts, which may or may not have been 
true — I did not know enough to check his 
statements — and, secondly, that he “had his 
hand on the pulse of native life” — which was 
a fact. As an Oxford man, he struck me as a 
prig; he was always throwing, his education 
about. As a Mohammedan fagiiir — as Mc- 
Intosh Jellaludin — he was all that I wanted for 
my own ends. He smoked several pounds of 
my tobacco, and taught me several ounces of 
things worth knowing; but he would never 
accept any gifts, not even when the cold weath- 
er came, and gripped the poor thin chest un- 
der the poor thin alpaca-coat. He grew very 
angry, and said that I had insulted him, and 
that he was not going into hospital. He had 
lived like a beast, and he would die rationally, 
like a man. 

As a matter of fact, he died of pneumonia; 
and on the night of his death sent over a 
grubby note asking me to come and help him 
to die. 

The native woman was weeping by the side 
of the bed. McIntosh, wrapped in a cotton 
cloth, was too weak to resent a fur coat being 
thrown over him. He was very active as 
far as his mind was concerned, and his eyes 
were blazing. When he had abused the doc- 
tor who came with me so foully that the indig- 
nant old fellow left, he cursed me for a few 
minutes and calmed down. 


336 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Then he told his wife to fetch out “The 
Book" from a hole in the wall. She brought 
out a big bundle, wrapped in the tail of a petti- 
coat, of old sheets of miscellaneous note-paper, 
all numbered and covered with fine cramped 
writing. McIntosh plowed his hand through 
the rubbish and stirred it up lovingly. 

‘“This,” he said, “is my work — the Book of 
McIntosh Jellaludin, showing what he saw 
and how he lived, and what befell him and 
others; being also an account of the life and 
sins and death of Mother Maturin. What 
Mirza Murad Ali Beg’s book is to all other 
books on native life, will my work be to Mirza 
Murad Ali Beg’s!” 

This, as will be conceded by any one who 
knows Mirza Murad Ali Beg’s book, was a 
sweeping statement. The papers did not look 
specially valuable; but McIntosh handled 
them as if they were currency-notes. Then 
said he slowly: 

“In despite the many weaknesses of your 
education, you have been good to me. I will 
speak of your tobacco when I reach the gods. I 
owe you much thanks for many kindnesses. 
But I abominate indebtedness. For this rea- 
son I bequeath to you now the monument more 
enduring than brass — my one book, rude and 
imperfect in parts, but oh, how rare in others! 
I wonder if you will understand it. It is a gift 
more honorable than. . . . Bah ! where is my 
brain rambling to? You will mutilate it horri- 
bl5^ You will knock out the gems you call 
‘Latin quotations,’ you Philistine, and you 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


337 


will butcher the style to carve into your own 
jerky jargon; but you cannot destroy the 
whole of it. I bequeath it to you. Ethel . . . 
My brain again! . . . Mrs. McIntosh bear wit- 
ness that I give the sahib all these papers. 
They would be of no use to you, heart of my 
heart ; and I lay it upon you, ’ ’ he turned to 
me here, “that you do not let my book die in 
its present form. It is yours unconditionally 
the story of McIntosh Jellaludin, which is not 
the story of McIntosh Jellaludin, but of a 
greater man than he, and of a far greater wo- 
man. Listen now! I am neither mad nor 
drunk! That book will make you famous.” 

I said, “thank you,” as the native woman 
put the bundle into my arms. 

“My only baby!” said McIntosh with a 
smile. He was sinking fast, but he continued 
to talk as long as breath remained. I waited 
for the end : knowing that, in six cases out of 
ten the dying man calls for his mother. He 
turned on his side and said : 

“Say how it came into your possession. No 
one will believe you, but my name, at least, 
will live. You will treat it brutally, I know 
you will. Some of it must go ; the public are 
fools and pruish fools. I was their servant 
once. But do your mangling gently — very 
gently. It is a great work, and I have paid for 
it in seven years of damnation. ” 

His voice stopped for ten or twelve breaths, 
and then he began mumbling a prayer of some 
kind in Greek. The native woman cried very 


22 Plain Tales 


338 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


bitterly. Lastly, he rose in bed and said, as 
loudly as slowly: “Not guilty, my Lord!’ 

Then he fell back, and the stupor held him 
till he died. The native woman ran into the 
serai among the horses and screamed and 
beat her breasts ; for she had loved him. 

Perhaps his last sentence in life told what 
McIntosh had once gone through ; but, saving 
the big bundle of old sheets in the cloth, there 
was nothing in his room to say who or what 
he had been. 

The papers were in a hopeless muddle. 

Strickland helped me to sort them, and he 
said that the writer was either an extreme 
liar or a most wonderful person. He thought 
the former. One of these days, you may be 
able to judge for yourselves. The bundle 
needed much expurgation and was full of 
Greek nonsense at the head of the chapters, 
which has all been cut out. 

If the thing is ever published, some one may 
perhaps remember this story, now printed as 
a safeguard to prove that McIntosh Jellaludin 
and not I myself wrote the Book of Mother 
Maturin. I don’t want the “Giant’s Robe” 
to come true in my case. 


THE END. 


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Her latest and greatest poem. This marvelous narrative of 
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AN AMBITIOUS MAN. (Prose.) 12mo, cloth, $1.00. 

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